Backdated Post -18 -20 April. Backlane Ogden and the moor, then Carr Hall Lane.

Sorry for the delay in posting this.. We went to visit friends, I took the camera and left it there by mistake. It took a couple of days to get it. back.

Backlane & moor. 18 April.

It was a sunny, cool day, with a stiff breeze. I saw two Peacock butterflies I was surprised to see them. I would have expected the strong gusty wind to have kept sheltering.

Carr Hall Lane. 20 April.

Again, cool, sunny and breezy. Most of Carr Hall Lane is sheltered, so it's generally warmer, with less wind.

Five peacocks .

One small Tortoiseshell. 

One Comma butterfly.

Over the years, I haven't seen many Peacocks, or Commas around here. I tend see more of them in North Norfolk. The Peacocks have for me, been hard to get good photos of, they are too shy. Is it proving to be a good year for them?

Comma Butterfly.

Peacock Butterfly.

1962...2023....its always been wet(or cold) in Calderdale....thanks A...Arak

 Mothing Evening July 10th 1962.

Mothing is a chancy business. The rain started about 4 o’clock. “If only it will clear” we said, “this may be a good night!”.

I phoned Bill Collinson. We met at 7.20pm and he ran us out in his car to see if anyone had turned up at 7.30.

Since it started, the rain had been a continuous downpour, and it just kept on. As we turned to go up the valley we saw a stream of water coming down the gutter, a wide stream. Higher up, water was pouring onto the road from the hillside in white torrents, and the cataracts at the roadside obscured all drains and rushed down more than a yard wide and was striped with foam.

Stone steps beside a house were now a waterfall. Every field and drain added its quota, in many places debris was spread across the road and we had to slow down to crash through rivers flowing from one side of the road to the other.

We kept on to the Clay Pits beyond the Carr. Here we got out. Everything was dripping wet and grey clouds obscured the hilltops, one arm of the cloud almost reaching down to Scout Hall.

The valley was covered, like a lid on a bowl, with ragged rainclouds. They continued to drop fatness upon the earth so we dived back into the car and sped for home.

(But as we parted we had a good chat on the Natural History of our project).

Castle Carr Road - 21st April

Wall to wall sunshine yesterday but the wind was pretty cool. Despite that we managed to find a single Green Hairstreak fluttering around the small heath-land area. It landed on a billberry and then a reed. I managed in the wind to get a blurred photo on the phone. 

Also along the road there were  a few sheltered spots and managed to find 4 Small Tortoiseshells and two Peacocks.

Lee Mount - 18th April and Luddenden

Lee Mount 

Hebrew Character x 5 in the trap and that was it !

Comma in a garden on dandelion flowers at Bracewell Grove late morning

Luddenden

Sunny warm afternoon in the valley mostly in the shelter from the cool easterly wind.

Brook Terrace area - Brimstone x 2 with one of them travelling up the valley and back again then down the valley and returning, seemed like checking out territory ?

Also in the area, mostly among stream-side vegetation - male Orange-tip x 1, Comma x 1, Small Tortoiseshell x 2 and several Peacock.

We also found another Brimstone in the cemetery this time on yellow primroses and a Speckled Wood by the weir near the church.

Not a bad afternoon !

Sowerby Bridge

 1 male Orange Tip by the canal today

Lee Mount - 17th April

Still a few hangers on from yesterday on the garden fence.

New ones in this morning....

Satellite (white marked) x 1

Hebrew Character x 3

Double-striped Pug x 1

Bee Moth x 1

Lee Mount - 16th April

 At last a few moths.....

In and around the trap this morning.

Clouded Drab x 4

Twin-spotted Quaker x 1

Small Quaker x 2

Common Quaker x 2

Early Thorn x 1

Chestnut x 1

Hebrew Character x 1

Common Plume x 1 

Early Grey x 1

Brindled Pug x 2

Agonopterix heracliana x 1

One micro as below c10 mm - not had much time to study this one yet and still to identify if someone can help ?

Second thoughts - or is it just a Twenty-plume Moth with closed wings ?

Four butterflies this afternoon just off Bradford Old Road - all disturbed on stone walls.

Peacock x 2

Small Tortoiseshell x 2

Cromwell Bottom 15/04/23

 Purple Thorn x 1

Early Tooth Striped x 5

Brindled Pug x 2

Common Quaker x 1

Clouded Drab x 2

Grey  Birch x 1

Twin Spotted Quaker x 1 

Grapholita junigella x 3

Hebrew Character x 11

Lee Mount

 Still not a lot....

7th April 

Common Quaker x 2

Agonopterix heracliana x 1

9th April

Common Quaker x 3

Twin-spotted Quaker x 1

Hebrew Character x 1

Bee Moth x 1 (indoors and nice to be lucky enough to see this one with wings open). At least I can't think of anything else it might be as it does seem unusually dark. I haven't been able to find any other photo's of underwing or reference to it's colour.

Bee Moth

Lee mount - 7th April

 One Peacock butterfly this afternoon in the garden - nothing else to report !!!

Lee Mount - 4th April

 At last - a butterfly. Just the one, a Comma landed briefly on a Cotoneaster never to be seen again !!

Nothing doing on the moth front either. The light is attracting nothing but the weather is not helping at all. Just a Bee Moth found in the bathroom this afternoon - and that's the lot.