The last few days

Following the successful visit to Lancashire at the end of last week I stayed a bit more local for the early part of this week.  Several speculative visits to interesting habitat for plants produced the surprise of the week.  A look at a grassy bank with plenty of Kidney Vetch produced at least two small dark blue butterflies which size-wise indicated Small Blue.  I was then thrown when photographing the underside of one of them: it was white with black spots which I took to be indicative of Holly Blue.  Bearing in mind it is 15 years since I have seen Small Blue in Dorset I had forgotten that they had dark uppersides and white undersides with black spots.  On checking it was clear that I had in fact seen two male Small Blues at what turns out to be one of two sites in Yorkshire but the locations are not commonly known.

male Small Blue, Yorkshire

Small Blue to 2014 - Courtesy of Butterfly Conservation

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Kidney Vetch

 A walk around at Greenhow produced several interesting sightings, including a very good candidate for Mountain Pansy.

Mountain Pansy

I then visited Old Glebe fields near Leyburn looking for Burnt-tip Orchid, no luck on this occasion but good to see so many Green-winged Orchids even if they were past their best, and a few Twayblades, and several Water Avens. 

Greater Twayblade

Water Avens

On Wednesday I went looking for Argent & Sable moths at Bishop's Wood near Selby.  I eventually had at least seven in flight and eventually one perched on White Campion, even if it didn't pose properly!  

Argent & Sable, Bishop's Wood

Another speculative visit to interesting habitat in VC64 produced another surprise: Pasque Flower.  This is a plant I have seen before in Gloucestershire I think but never realised they occurred this far north.  In addition there were a small number of Fragrant Orchids coming into flower and at least 150 Chimney Sweeper moths, a species I had recorded in Dorset well before I was interested in moth recording and somehow hadn't made it on to my list.

Chimney Sweeper

Cocksfoot Moth

Fragrant Orchid

A fantastic weeks recording with c.70 new species including four new moths.

Square-bashing 2012

In common with the previous last few years, I have had a look at target squares for the coming season.  In addition to squares with few records, I have identified a number of species that I would like to find in Yorkshire, most of which would be new to me.  To help me with this, I have an excel sheet with all the hectads for the VC's 61-65.  The small number at the top of each square is the number of species recorded in each square from the Yorkshire database, and those in grey are the squares with less than 100 species recorded.   The larger numbers are the number of species I have recorded in each square, and the colour coded squares were under-recorded squares I have targeted over the last three years.  This has proved most rewarding for the pale blue squares which now have respectable totals including some very good moths.  The pink ones were those for 2011, which received some coverage in that year, but I have carried them over to 2012 to try a bit harder.

As for some of the species I would target, I have interrogated the Yorkshire database and come up with some maps, to give me an idea when and which areas to target.  I do not hold out too much hope, but if you don't look you don't see, so let's just see how we get on.......

Square-bashing

In addition to my interest in natural history, I have always been fascinated by maps.  I have spent hours pouring over OS Explorer maps, and with the fantastic Google Map resource, you can zoom in and identify good areas of habitat, and potential trapping sites.  Being fairly new to Yorkshire, it took some time to find good sites close to home, and was spurred on by the maps in the Yorkshire lepidoptera reports which initially just identified those squares with less than 100 species, and more recently gave the total of both micro and macro moths for each square.   In 2009, I focused on the three 10km squares running up the west end of the North Yorkshire moors (SE47,48 and 49), which was rewarded with good records of Devon Carpet (new to Yorkshire), and Red-necked Footman (first for over 100 years).  In 2010, three more squares targeted, one near Hovingham, and two on the norther side of the NY moors, two were increased to well over 100 and the third just snook in at 99 species.  This year, nine squares identified as needing some recording effort, which unfortunately are some distance from home, so will have to be extremely good weather to make the effort worthwhile.

...I'm just trying to figure out how to attach a map....

A new moth for me.......is it the Yorkshire Brown?

The first night out for a short while, and the woodland around Kilburn beckoned.  The wind dropped and the temperature remained above +9, and the half-moon was low enough in the sky so as not to impact on the trapping.  The trapping session was brought abruptly to a close with a rain shower.....water and very hot bulbs do not go well together.  While going throught the assembled moths, there was one in the egg boxes that immediately stood out....was it the legendary Yorkshire Brown.....no it was a Lutestring but which one?  A quick check in Waring and Townsend and my Lutestring cribsheet, it was soon narrowed down to Poplar Lutestring. 

Poplar Lutestring

Poplar Lutestring

On returning home, a quick check of Sutton and Beaumont suggested only a couple of old records, but the NMRS website showed several other squares in a small group in the Yorkshire area.  The County Recorder Charlie Fletcher kindly confirmed the pictures and sent the current distribution map for the moth for the previous ten records, and my record was a new 10km square and the earliest county record.

 

A total of 98 moths of 26 species, with 33 Brown Silver-line and 11 Pale Tussock the commonest, and new for the year were singles of Common Lutestring, Poplar Hawk-moth, Alder Moth and Rustic Shoulder-knot.