Last Night Moths too

It certainly seems the year for Campion - a new species for me - also the usual hard to i.d. Pug, is this a Currant Pug?

Last Nights moths

A few more moths in the trap last night including this Spectacle,Angle Shades,White Ermine,Shuttle shaped Dart,Campion,Rustic shoulder knot,Garden Carpet and Small phoneix.

Today

1252 Grapholita lunulana(cheers Paul)

Six Spot Burnet catapillar

The Campion

Cromwell Bottom today was a bit cool for moths but found a few Speckled wood and Green Veined Whites.

Scarr Wood LNR

Went down to clear Scarr Wood LNR of litter yesterday, (26 bags removed but that is another story).

Lots of speckled wood, orange tip and whites around at the moment especially down at the bottom in the regeneration area, also possible sighting of a small copper but this was heading away from me and despite clambering over the rocks (with litter pickers and bag in hand) could not get a decent look at it.

If anyone has a chance to have a look down at the bottom of the wood on a sunny day it is well worth it.

Chris

First Butterfly Dates so far

Orange Tip 26th april
Meadow Brown 22nd may
Small Copper 20th May
Peacock 10th Feb
Speckled wood 28th april
Holly Blue 7th May
Comma 28th March
Small tortoiseshell 29th March
Green Hairstreak 2nd May
Large White no date
Small White no date
Green veined White no date
Butterflys recorded so far this year and the first date.If any one can add to this please do.

garden

1 golden y moth
2 large white

Hebden Bridge Foray

On the 20th Charlie Streets and I went for a forray around Hebden Bridge and Pecket Well.

Photo CS

Photo CS

Photo WP

Photo WP

Here is our joint list-

396 Glyphipterix fuscoviridella ~50
1251 Grapholita jungiella 1
1952 Common Heath 1
797 Neofaculta ericetella 1
385 Nettle-tap Anthophila fabriciana 5
391 Cocksfoot moth Glyphipterix simpliciella 7

Possible Emperor moth pupa
Green Hairstreak 15

Also
Orange Tip (m)
Peacock
Small Tortoiseshell

Speckled Wood
Green Veined White

Winston Plowes

Not calderdale

Pearl Bordered Fritillary

Dingy Skipper

Duke of Burgandy
Gait Barrows Nature reaserve near Silverdale at the moment is full of beautiful Butterflys and well worth a day visit if you get the time.As well as the above there were Common Blue,green Haristreak and some beautiful day flying moths Anania funebris the pick of the bunch.

ID help

Small Yellow Underwing ???

Small Copper
First small Coppers today along with Large white and Speckled wood,loads of nettle Tap and Adela reaumurella and this small moth wich i only saw for 30 seconds but it looks like a Small Yellow Underwing.?any ideas

Moorland foray

After work on Sunday I took a trip to the moors above Pecket well. Cloudy, gloomy and rather chilly and the prospects were not good. However two Green Hairstreaks were spotted and this rather impressive but as yet unidentified Larvae on billbery and heather. Anybody any ideas what it is? (37mm long) Happy hunting. Winston

May Tips

Hi all

Sorry for my lack of contributions this month, but my proposed move to Wales is at last happening AND despite the supposed recession we are suffering my book business is booming, thus not much time for bug hunting.

Two easy to find larvae now are Orchestes fagi (bottom photo) a beetle leaf miner of Beech the mines are very distinctive AND no lepidopterous mines occur on beech before this species. You should find these now on any Beech you look over.

Top photo is of an opened grass stalk and show the larva of a tortrix moth called,Timothy Tortrix (Aphelia paleana). The larvae are around now in a wide variety of spun vegetation such as Hogweed, Plantain, etc but I most often find them in the spun together top of a blade of one the tall coarse grasses like the one shown. You should be able to find these in just about any area of rough ground in Calderdale. When you find such larval spinnings open them carefully over a container of some sort as the larvea casn move at an amazing speed and dissapear rapidly once exposed to light.

A good tip to see if the larvea you have found is one of the micro moths as opposed to a macro moth is to apply the "tickle test". You gently touch or tickle the larvea at either end, micro larvae can move back and forwards with equal speed, macro larvae tend to move forward or curl up. Two useful bits of kit to take with are a small artists paint brush (the kind you can buy for a few pence in pound shops) and some womens eyebrow tweezers. The tweezers are excellant for opening small spun bits of vegetation or nettles and the paint brush for gently picking up small larvae. I will try and get some shots of my kit bag I take out most days when bug hunting. Apart from a camera and hand lens most of my kit comes from Wilkinsons or Pound shops, so its not expensive to build up a useful field bag to take on trips.

I will try and make some time in the next few days to find and photograph some Coleophorid case which should be around now on many trees. Hopefully I can upload with some more hints and tips later this week or early next week.

Hi All


Had an afternoon walking round Pecket Well area today and saw



1 White
1 Peacock
4 Nettle Tap
1 Common Heath (m)
19 Green Hairstreak

Winston.
P.S. Last night in the Skinner trap - Nothing!

P.P.S And its a change to post some images of bigger insects on this blog! lol

Larvae in Beech.?

Inspired by Charlys pics ,I found these today on beech,there seems to be at least 2 larvae in there.?any ideas

ID help

Is this a worn out orthosia species or something else.?

Hi All,

Is this accommodation suitable for my Ribwort Plantain resdents?

Winston

Last Nights moths

1 Ancylis badiana
1 light Brown apple moth
1 Yellow barred brindle
1 flame Carpet
1 Hebrew Character

Hi All,

Had a micro in the trap I am unfamiliar with 2 nights ago... here it is

Now, coincidentally it looks very similar to the one in Andrew and Loras recent post, i.e. Mompha subbistrigella as identified by Charly. But Charly, whilst the legs etc look right , the wings especially the white areas don't look the same as the pics on the uk moths site? can you help?
Winston

Pine Beauty

Another quiet night despite the warm weather - is it too clear? - but I did have one of my favourite moths, this Pine Beauty, also Early Grey, Brindled and Double-striped Pug.



Can anyone help with the i.d. of this Pug I had on Thursday night? It was very small and after consulting the pug id book I think it may be a Dwarf Pug

Moth Trap

Had a quick go with the moth trap last night thanks Andy. Had it on from about 8.30 - 12.30 and duly went out early this morning to see what was there and took some photos. The ones below are in the sample containers and I then tried some more natural looking ones with the 3 bigger moths - 1 flew off straight away, the others weren't too bad - maybe it wasn't cold enough at 6am this morning? lol Anyway I forgot just how small the depth of field is with a macro lens but some came out OK, these ones are clearer though. Have not had chance to look them up yet but here we go.......

First the 2 very small ones, about 5mm long at a guess.

Then the bigger ones - 3 in all

my house

had 1 peackock over today

Wednesday nights moths in Calderdale

Last night seemed a good night with more midges than I have seen on any night this year but sadly, only

Pale Pinion 1
Common Quaker 1
E. Subpurpurella 6

Total - 8

Winston, Hebden Bridge

P.S. During the day however I saw my 1st Holly Blue of the year in Hebden

(Add to this thread with your trappings if you like)

Cromwell Bottom 5th May

First time out looking for butterflies... and its taken me 3 days to get round to posting it! lol

Tried Cromwell Bottom and had plenty of small tortoiseshells, couple of peacocks and a speckled wood (I think - first for me). Also had possible a female orange tip though no clear views as was flying way too fast and didnt settle. There was also a much smaller white butterfly?

Very sunny day and nice to be out, butterflies didnt seem to want to co operate with having their photos taken much mind - someone told me that its best to go in the evening as they are settling in for the night?

Last Nights moths

This Yellow Barred Brindle was new for me up here,and seems to be recorded at light throughout our area.

Sunshine

Loads of Speckled Wood today at CB and Copley,also Orange Tip ,Peacock and Small tortoiseshell.Swarms of Eriocrania subpurpurella numbering 500 +,3 larval cases swept from heather which may be Coleophora pyrrhulipennella also Coleophora cases on birch and larvae on bilberry.Excellent to be out in the sunshine.

Water Carpet

Despite looking like a promising night last night there was only a Clouded Drab in the trap. But it was keeping company with this Water Carpet Lampropteryx suffumata. A new moth for me and one for which there doesn't seem to be that many records.

Winston

465 Plutella porrectella

Spotted one of these at altitude today whilst out mountain biking. It was in a grass verge above Sowerby near to Crow Hill. The larvae feed on Dame's violet (Hesperis matronalis) and are usually on just about any patch you find

Help with Pugs

Can anyone help me with the i.d. of these two Pugs, both caught on Saturday night, I think one is a Brindled Pug and the other Double-striped Pug. The Brindled was much larger than the DSP, although they both look very similar

Double-striped Pug (?)

Brindled Pug (?)

ogden

large white
2 small tortoiseshells
1 peackock

Twenty-plume Moth (Alucita hexadactyla)

Lots of the adults of this species around in my garden on Honeysuckle at the moment. Anywhere in Calderdale that has Honeysuckle (including cultivated forms in gardens etc) should have adults on it now. I watch this species every year in the garden at this time on my various Honeysuckle cultivars. The life stages are easy to find and its especially easy to find as larvae over the next few weeks. All you need to do is find Honeysuckle in Flower and look for either a hole chewed in an unopened flower or look for an unopened but rather dirty off white looking flower (caused by the larva's frass).

Ben Smarts image shows the damage rather well.

North Dean Woods

Anyone up for a daytime trip round North Dean next week ? Evenings are not good times for me as I usually get a lot of customer enquires in the evenings and thus its my busiest time of day. In North Dean by next week (assuming the warm weather holds up) I would expect to find quite a lot of different larvae, some Coleophorid cases and perhaps the first leaf mines of the seasons.

I have a couple of hand nets, a sweep net and most of the other gear needed to mount a decent search. As I travel by cycle usually I would appreciate a lift if anyone else fancies coming along. Any day is fine by me, morning or afternoon.

Butterflies so far

Its been a slow stat compared to last Aprils record temps but at last there seem to be a few butterflies about.Comma,Speckled Wood ,Small Tortoiseshell,Peacock and Orange Tip have been seen this week at Cromwell Bottom and there have been a few reports of Brimstone from the Todmorden area.I am almost sure I saw a Green Hairstreak fly by at Ringstone this morning but I could not relocate it.

Cromwell Bottom Map

Andy has given me a map of Cromwell Bottom. I have scanned it and put it up here so people can refer to it and the areas mentioned in various posts on this blog. If anyone wants a better copy I can email it to them if they supply their email address.

Winston

Sunday

Sunday night looks good for Cromwell Bottom/Copley woods if anyone is interested.