Many Moths!

Just a quick moth update - be nice to have this blog fully up-to-date!

Since my last mothing post I have run the trap at Mum and Dad's on five nights. And as to be expected with the nights cooling off and the year progressing, overall numbers are dropping but there's still heaps of variety and plenty of potential.  I'm ever hopeful of a garden Convolvulus Hawkmoth so don't expect any less trapping to take place over the next month - fingers crossed this is my year!

First up was the night of 22nd August which gave me 178 moths of 28 species. Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, Vine's Rustic and Large Yellow Underwing were the top three species quantity-wise, with the pick of the catch quality-wise being two Orange Swift (don't see many of these here), Mocha and my first Canary-shouldered Thorn of the year...

Orange Swift

Canary-shouldered Thorn

My next trapping night was 25th August which gave me 184 moths of 28 species. Top three species in numbers same as the last catch (although in a different order, Vine's Rustic now top), with the highlights being singles of Dark Sword Grass, Mocha, L-album Wainscot, Chinese Character and three Silver Y....

Dark Sword-Grass

Chinese Character

I trapped the following night too because the weather looked so promising, this produced a much better 226 moths of 35 species.  Same top three species quantity-wise, with 75 Large Yellow Underwings making up a large percentage of the catch.  The highlight was, incredibly, my second Jersey Mocha in under a month (first HERE), along with singles of Maiden's Blush, Four-spotted Footman and Dark Sword Grass.

Jersey Mocha #2.  Although more battered around the edges than my first, what is there is brighter and fresher.

Maiden's Blush

Roll forward to 29th August (after a spell of poor weather) and 101 moths of 21 species trapped.  Setaceous Hebrew Character replaced Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing as the third most numerous species, with some nice snippets of quality from singles of Four-spotted Footman, Maiden's Blush, Silver Y, Small Mottled Willow and a lovely Portland Ribbon Wave...

Portland Ribbon Wave

Male Four-spotted Footman, not caught any females this year

Small Mottled Willow

And finally we come to my most recent catch, the night of 2nd September and the 176 moths of 22 species this gave me the following morning.  Same top three as the last catch and the highlights were singles of Silver Y, Dark Spectacle and Pale Mottled Willow...

An awful photo of a Pale Mottled Willow - sorry it's so rubbish, I was going to take more but it flew off!

Dark Spectacle - a classic example of one (and note three separate kidney marks, in Spectacle the two nearest the head are usually merged to make one big one)

Insects Galore

It's been a good week, which started in great form finding my first ever patch Purple Hairstreak!  I noticed there seems to be good numbers of the species about this year, and had my eyes on a few Oak trees on the edge of some woodland in Colyton at the end of Jobble's Lane...

For some reason these caught my eye

And on my first time of checking earlier this week, ten minutes into scanning I picked one up!  I saw it several times over the course of the next five minutes before it flew deeper into the woods - love it when a plan works out!  No pics I'm afraid as no settled views, but such a thrill to see.

I have had three mothing nights this week, starting with a trap at Mum and Dad's on Sunday night.  Early on Monday morning there were 142 macro moths of 42 species for me to look at, with the highlights being...

Scarce Footman - haven't caught many of these at all

Scarce and Common Footman

The Herald - a stunning moth

Black Arches - common but was my first this year so needed a photo!

The next night my moth trap was at Fran's house where 121 macro moths of 32 species were caught, with one clear highlight for me...

Male Drinker - such a beast!

On Tuesday night it was back up to Mum and Dad's again, 104 macro moths of 28 species were waiting for me the following morning and included one of my favourite moths...

Male Four-spotted Footman

And again with a Common Footman

Also among the catch were...

Maybe common but always beautiful - Burnished Brass

Pine Carpet - don't catch loads of these

Small Blood-vein

Phew. And that's the insects done!  No notable birds to mention so will go straight to the lunar activity of the last few days.  The moon has been pretty impressive all week as it is, and here's it rising on Monday night...

Taken during another unsuccessful Quail hunt!

But of course the highlight was the amazing partial lunar eclipse on Tuesday evening...

21:30

22:30. Look at the colour of it!!

Hopefully there will be some more feathered content in my next post...

Scorchio!

Wow it's hot today.  A look along the river at about 08:30 showed there had been a bit of an arrival of new waders, with three Black-tailed Godwits alongside three Dunlin (my first of the autumn) along the waters edge...

Summer plumaged Blackwit and three Dunlin

Among the gulls three Med Gulls were on show, the first-summer that I yesterday labelled 'distinctively bland' and these two beautiful juveniles...

If you're not familiar with the juvenile plumage of Med Gull, I urge you to come over to the Axe Estuary or Black Hole Marsh and take a look at one. At this time of year they should be present pretty much daily now in varying numbers, and they really do have a delicate beauty to them.  Gorgeous things.

The moth trapping last night would have gone better had Mum and Dad's resident pair of Herring Gulls not taken an interest in the trap before I got to it!  Still there was a very good variety of moths and good numbers too. Nothing new for me or the garden, but the two scarcest species (which were actually both on the wall of the house) were...

Female Four-spotted Footman

The Fern

It was great to get the chance to introduce Harry to a Poplar Hawkmoth, his reaction was epic...

A Catch Up

And I'll try and keep it as brief as possible...

Early morning visits to Black Hole Marsh on Tuesday and Wednesday failed to reveal the biggy, but the Tuesday visit did show; 28 Teal, 25 Blackwits, 23 Dunlin, 11 Common Sands, four Green Sands, four Ringed Plover, two Lapwing, a Whimbrel and a Wheatear. On Wednesday it was slightly different with; 28 Teal, 24 Blackwits, 24 Dunlin, 15 Common Sands, 14 Green Sands (my biggest count of 2012), nine Ringed Plover, two Gadwall, a Redshank and a Snipe.

The two Gadwall

The Dunlin flock right in front of the hide!

Another look over Black Hole Marsh on Friday (I was a 'Guide in the Hide' for three hours) showed lower numbers of everything, but an adult Med Gull was my first in the valley for several weeks.

I've done a bit of sea watching since my last post too, although a twenty minute watch on Wednesday morning was the only one worth talking about, as a Balearic and 24 Manx Sheartwaters flew east.

That leaves me with today to mutter about. My phone was busy this morning, with Beer showing good numbers of grounded migrants. So I decided it would be a great idea to take Jess for a walk around the Beer Cemetery Fields :-). Lots of Willow Warblers about, along with four Spot Flies and a nice male Redstart. Sadly no shrikes or rare warblers though.

And now for moths! Although the total of 134 moths of 35 species wasn't very impressive at all, some of the species were...

Best of all was a new species for the garden, there were two of them in fact...

Hoary Footman - ok it may not look great, but they certainly made my day!

These represented one of the four species of Footman in the trap, with the other three species being Buff, Common, and this...

Male Four-spotted Footman - one of my favourites

There was also one of these...

Crescent Dart

Two of these...

Iron Prominents

And four Silver Y, including this very black individual...

The blackest one I've ever seen!

I will not leave it so long until my next post I promise!!!

Is This The Longest Awaited Post Ever.....

... answer; NO! But this is me giving in to all the the cries of "we need a moth update", well both of them anyway!

I'm afraid it is going to have to be a brief one, but there's a few pretty pictures to enjoy. And - just for the 'proper mothers' - there's even a few micros featured!!

I'm not going to publish the full lists of the six catches that haven't been mentioned as yet on this blog, just some highlights.

I haven't trapped anything that's been new for the garden - although I'm 99% I had a Small Marbled 'get away' a couple of weeks ago. Just as I was unscrewing the lid of the pot to put it in, it flew off... I was rather miffed at missing out on the Rannoch Looper influx too - although it serves me right as I wasn't trapping on the nights of the main influxes.

Obviously I have had all the usual 'new for the years' as the months tick by, this morning it was nice to get the year's first one of these...

Jersey Tiger

Also this morning, I had what can only be described as the prettiest July Highflyer I've ever seen...

Well smart!

For me immigrant numbers have been very poor. In fact i've only trapped two immigrant macros so far this year, and both of them have been...

Silver Y's!

Out of the new species for the year that I've trapped, it was nice to see three beasts that are nationally rather scrarce and patchily distrubted...

Four-spotted Footman - a rather worn and faded male

The Fern

Crescent Dart - a male

And now it is micro time! Without noticing, I am looking at these little critters a little more now...

Rusty-dot Pearl; boring to look at - but it's a migrant!

Catoptria pinella; lives in wooded heaths and bogs - not sure why it was in my garden then!?

Endotricha flammealis - a smart little critter

And that's my mothing update done, now time to go out and look at some Gulls.......