First night out for a while....

Larch Pug

Now feeling somewhat better and after my first weeks work for a while, I was desperate to get out and do some mothing.  I chose a site on the North Yorkshire Moors that straddled two 10km squares, a coniferous plantation surrounded by moorland.  As it turned out, reasonable numbers of moths, but only 29 species, however, three of them were new for me.

Spruce Bud Moth

Larch Tortrix

A chance to catch up

Having spent the last two and a half weeks recovering from an Op and not been able to get about at all, I have taken the opportunity to sort out all my digital photos, and put them into a sensible file system.  This has been very theraputic, ambling through many memories, and the satisfaction of imposing order on a chaotic mass.

Although all the moth files are now labelled properly, there is now plenty of scope to identify some of the many record shots, and add records as I go along.  Just a cursory glance at an old Dorset file gave me a new species, one that I just had not recognised before.  Now that they are all sorted, I can see some winter evenings work going through the individual photos, while dreaming of catching some of the summer hauls....

Burnished Brass split?

There has been a lot of speculation recently about the status of Burnished Brass moths in Britain, following a presentation by Colin Plant at last Novembers Annual Exhibition of Entomological and Natural History Society. He provided compelling evidence that the Burnished Brass should be split into two species, something the Europeans have been doing for some time. He suggested they could be identified on external features, the difference being the 'bridge' between the two gold bands on the forewing. If the bands were joined it was the new species Cryptic Burnished Brass Diachrysia stenochrysitis (sic), and if not linked was the 'old' species of Burnished Brass Diachrysia chrysitis. Both forms are illustrated in Waring and Townsend.

I add the following information from Charlie Fletcher:

"It is almost 50 years since the suggestion was first made that an additional species may be present within the taxon Diachrysia chrysitis.  More recently is has been shown that the moth that had been referred to in Europe as ssp tutti is in fact a sibling species of D. chrysitis, the western representative of the eastern species D. stenochyrsis. The English name Cryptic Brass has been suggested for this species. Following a long investigation, the two species have been definitively distinguished by their morphology, differences in structure of the wings scales, electrophoresis and different male pheromones.  So far as it is known, the two species have a similar distribution in Europe, including Britain"

"In the field, separation is based on whether the brown, non-metallic median fascia is complete (chrysitis) or interrupted by a band of green scales, these thus forming an "H" shape (stenochrysis). Examples at each end of the spectrum may be safely named using this character, however intermediate examples exist where the median fascia is traversed by a very narrow line of green scales.  These will probably require examination of genitalic characters to be certain of the species. However a character that appears to be fairly constant is that in
stenochrysis, the upper end of the lower section of the brown median fascia is distinctly rounded. In specimens of chrysitis where the median fascia is interrupted by a narrow line of green scales, this lower section tends to be square-ended."

Of course, this prompted me to look back through any photos I had, and of three that I found, there were examples of both species and an intermediate.

Windmill Farm, Cornwall, 12 Sep 2005

 

Lyons Gate, Dorset, 12 Jul 2004

Lyons Gate, Dorset, 19 Jun 2004

Terns in Ireland

Having spent a couple of days visiting parents in south-east Ireland, I took the opportunity to visit Tacumshin and Lady's Island Lake.  There were 500 + Black-tailed Godwit most evident, very few retaining any summer plumage, so are presumably early returning non-breeders.  There was a magnificant jet black summer plumaged Spotted Redshank which was particularly pleasing.   At Lady's Island there were literally thousands of terns, and by positioning on the beach was able to catch the terns as they flew across the dunes towards the sea.  Hardly any returned in the first 3 hours of the day, so they were presumably off catching fish.  The terns were mainly Common with a small number of Arctic Terns, while the Sandwich Terns seemed to be feeding elsewhere and coming in from the north, which is from inland, but most were carrying small fish back to the lake.

I attach a few photos showing the Common Terns, which have dark-tipped red bills, a moult line in the primaries showing a dark wedge in the unmoulted primaries.  The Arctic Terns have a red bill, paler wings with no wedge, narrow dark tips to underside of flight feathers, and longer tail feathers.  The Sandwich Terns are larger, paler, and have dark bill with a yellow tip.

Common Tern

Common Tern

Common Tern

Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Sandwich Tern

Sandwich Tern

There were a few Little Terns too, allowing me to brush up on tern identification, but no luck with the summering Forster's Tern nearby......

A couple of spectacular birds of prey

A couple of evenings ago, on the Skelton road out of Langthorpe, heard the unmistakable sound of Swallow's alarm call, and looked up to see a superb adult Hobby dashing across the sun-bathed field followed closely by half a dozen Swallows.  Then today on the Knaresborough road out of Minskip, saw a Red Kite languidly flying north over the cereal fields, with the forked tail flashing rusty red as it twisted in the sunlight.   Two cracking raptors.

Blomer's Rivulets and all...

A fine nights trapping at the Sutton Bank end of Kilburn woods, and of 255 moths of 46 species, the 6th commonest moth was the rather local but beautiful Blomer's Rivulet, with 12 trapped.  The supporting cast included very few micros, and at least eight Welsh Waves.

Blomer's Rivulet, Welsh Wave and Tinea semifulvella

Five (-4) go mad in Dorset.....

A couple of days down south, with the first night with traps out in North-west Dorset at two of my old regular sites at Holm Bushes and Minterne Seat Coppice - warm but breezy kept the numbers down, usual stuff with just  Incurvaria oehmlmanniella as a new one.

However, after a very pleasant day at Portland and west Dorset, spent Friday night at Blackdown.  This site is an island of heather and bilberry scrub heath, with some plantations, and was where I found the first confirmed Dorset record of Lead Belle on 3rd June 2006.

I set a 40w actinic in a small depression on the heath near Hardy's monument, and then a 160w MVB over a sheet in an open area adjacent to the heath, and the 125w MV in the woodland among beech and conifers...and what a night!  At least 92 species, of which three were new for me, and another was my first Dorset one.

New for me were Dichrorampha plumbana, Tawny Shears and Beautiful Snout, while new for Dorset was Dark Spectacle.

Lead Belle

  Galium Carpet

  Esperia sulpherella

And to top it all off, on Saturday morning, while refuelling the car in Dorchester, there was my second ever (and two weeks after my first) Lime Hawkmoth perched on the pump...a bit like buses, none for ages then they all come along at once.

Lime Hawkmoth

What a great couple of days, superb scenery, some good moths, and brilliant weather.