I have been trying to get a a photo of these camara shy creatures for 5 years. Finally, I found one sleeping in the hall. I got five shots before it flew off. Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for, (or not), a Moth Fly - Psychodidae, which is a family of true flies.
As the blog is quiet just now and one of the common names of this 2mm beastie is Moth Fly, I thought I might just get away with posting it.
Oak Nycteoline
(This time last year it was Fox Moths on Soil Hill)
Anne found another moth as we were going to bed last night. I got a very bad, blurred photo, before it flew away. It's OK for an ID however. It was a Double Striped Pug, only the second one I've ever seen.
Anne found a Twenty Plume in the hall this afternoon. (I trained her well). It's very near the floor. I can't easily get that low down these days, so one side of the moth is in soft focus. That's a technical term for blurred by the way.
I find it strange that they were all collected at the same time last year and all received the same treatment - some emerged last July and one (so far) emerged overnight and photographed this morning.
Also, this quite cold morning, Jen managed to find just one Green Hairstreak on Castle Carr Road resting on a roadside mossy wall.
I was contacted recently by Anthony Arak who is about my age and was a member of the Halifax Scientific Society as a teenager, long before I joined. He has or has had a career in Ecology. I knew his name because his project, along with another teenage member, to reintroduce Emperor Moths onto Norland Moor in the 1960s is written about by Clifford Lees in one of our publications, ("The Natural History of Norland Moor.")
He refound the HSS via me on Facebook. What luck he did that when we are still called HSS! (I hope we always are.)
He has been introducing us to the delights the Emperor Moth as I told him we had never seen one, only the caterpillars. So now we've seen them on Wadsworth Moor (above Hebden Bridge,) Whirlaw Common (above Todmorden,) and Stiperden Moor (above the Long Causeway - the Burnley Old Rd - above Todmorden.) We used an artificial pheremone lure briefly. It is very effective! If the weather is warm enough and there is a light breeze the males, which are day fliers, arrive very quickly! Now we just have to be lucky and find a female, as they sit still, pumping out their pheremone, and wait for the males to arrive. (Moth folk will know all about this - I originally wrote this for the general Halifax Scientific Society blog.)
Anthony would like to resume his great interest in moths. He has asked me by email if he needs permission to run moth evenings at Cromwell Bottom. I've said I will put him in touch with the various people already involved in this.
He says he would like to try, apart from a light trap, sugaring, wine ropes and "mad moth netting by torchlight."
I have mentioned the CBWG enthusiasts who already do moth nights. Is Robin Dalton still involved for the Council? I was going to ask about how Graham Haigh is but just remembered I might be able to find out on Facebook.
Still pretty quiet with the recent cold nights
23rd - Angle Shades caterpillar (I think ?) retrieved from the plastic door frame. No idea where that came from so put it safely back in the nearby vegetation
Mixenden Reservoir, Hunter Hill and part of Ogden golf course this morning. A lovely warm sunny day.
Fly-through Brimstone at Mixenden was only my second ever for Calderdale. Also in that same area an Orange-tip and a Green-veined White - the latter took some finding in the vegetation for a photo but I wasn't quick enough for the Brimstone.
Elsewhere, around Hunter Hill and the golf course - A decent show of Peacocks, and Small Tortoiseshells and to a lesser extent Orange-tips.
Common Heath x 1 earlier today
Still quiet for moths but despite that a bat was flying around last night at 8pm ( probably a 'pip'. )
Twin-spotted Quaker x 1
Common Quaker x 1
Male Orange-tip Butterfly in Shroggs Park woodland this morning.
I recently got into the habit, if I could collect them safely, of moving moths well away from the house - otherwise the same ones seem to appear or stay around for several days.
3rd - Early Thorn x 1, Hebrew Character x 2, Common Quaker x 2, Diurnea fagella x 1, Brindled Pug x 1 and Early Grey x 1
4th - Twin-spotted Quaker x 1, Small Quaker x 1
Everyone agree on Engrailed?
Edit: I originally had this on for ID but after about 2hrs I have it as Oak Nycteoline, an excellent Garden first.Moth Trap 30th March;
Chestnut x4
Common Quaker x13
Small Quaker x21
Water Carpet x1 [NFY]
Mottled Grey x6
Hebrew Character x10
Brindled Pug x7
Oak Beauty x4
Brown House Moth x1 [NFY]
Twin Spot Quaker x3
Clouded Drab x1
Red Green Carpet x1 [NFY]
Oak Nycteoline x1 [NFG]
Luddenden 290321
Oak Beauty 1
Common Quaker 8
Small Quaker 8
Twin-spot Quaker 3
Hebrew Character 6
Chestnut 1
Early Grey 2
Luddenden 303021
Brindled Pug 3
Oak Beauty 2
Dotted Border 1
Pine Beauty 1
Small Quaker 7
Twin-spot Quaker 2
Early Grey 1
Chestnut 3
Hebrew Character 2
I don't know what happened to the Common Quakers last night
A good day yesterday with a new one for me us in the form of an Orange Underwing - just one flying around in an area of birch woodland in Shroggs Park overlooking Shroggs Road (thanks for the tip off AC and BL).
I have a plume moth today, which I need some help with. The photo is not one of my better ones, sorry. I'm having a little trouble with my macro camera, so had to use one of my others with semi macro. It just isn't the same.
I think it's a Beautiful Plume - Amblyptilia acanthadactyla. It has banded legs and shading on the wing tips and on the leading edge of it's wings. It looks worn, so I'm not one hundred percent sure.
I was out in the field opposite the house last night, here is what I got: all larvae unless specified
Anomalous x11. Autumnal Rustic x1
Square Spot Rustic x3
Adult mottled Grey x2
I heard the first Skylarks today, on Ovenden Moor, they are always a welcome sound. I was above Ogden. on the Millennium Way. Also, several grouse were calling and one lonely Blackbird.
Hebrew Character x1
Oak Beauty x 1
1 Common Quaker
1 Small Quaker new to garden
1 Chestnut new to garden
1 Pale Brindled Beauty new to garden
1 Hebrew Character
None I think are repeats as I take them a couple of hundred yards from the house and let them go in some thick scrub. The trap site is out of view from the release site blocked by the farmhouse and barn and my MV is run behind a large fence so it does not disturb my next door neighbour. I feed the tweeters in the garden so I like to shift the moths well out of the way of hungry tits and sparrows :)
Jut two new ones overnight (others recent ones still hanging on the fence by the trap)
Three new moths this morning to add to the 'long stayers' from the last few days
2 x Common Quaker Orthosia cerasi
My garden is at around 250 AMSL so way higher than our last place in Elland Park rd. Very little woodland nearby and the only mature trees nearby are a large Beech, Sycamore and an Oak some 25 mtrs away. Otherwise its all rough pasture with a stream and some woodland bordering it on either side about 500 yards away running down the valley towards Millbank. We are surrounded by open moorland so I am hoping for some upland species in the trap as the year progresses. But my main interest is in actively looking for moths in all stages by searching rather than trapping, and as this is "virgin territory" for me I am hoping to find some new to me species up here. The garden will be cleared and planted with insect attracting plants over the next year or two and hopefully this mini oasis of nectar sources will attracting some new species into feed. I have plans to create a small wildlife pond and bog area so this I hope will also draw in new insects if not lepidoptera. At Park rd in around 5 years of trapping and finding butterflies by day I recorded around 460 species of lepidoptera in our tiny garden. I strongly suspect that up here the list might be much shorter but at least I will enjoying the recording of new species rather than counting out 150 Large Yellow Underwing morning after morning before work :) All in all I am looking forward to a full years bug hunting up here and though I hope lockdown ends soon its not going to curtail my entomolgy this year at all if it does not :)
The trap was absolutely brimming with moths last night, a spring moth festival.
Moth trap 18th March
Oak Beauty X3
Common Quaker x5
Small Quaker x5 (NFY)
Hebrew Character x4 (NFY)
Dotted Border x1 (NFG)
Twin Spot Quaker x1 (NFY)
Yellow Horned x1
Mottled Grey x3
March Moth x1
Chestnut x4
Satellite x1
KITCHEN WINDOW
Brindled Pug x1 (NFY)
Sadly only one moth in the trap this morning , but at least its a new species for the site :)
Hebrew Character Orthosia gothica
Update just found a March Moth on the patio doors near the trap so double my list for the night :)
I finally got a Common Quaker!
Moth trap 17th March
Oak Beauty x1 (yet another different one, they are all different)
Mottled Grey x1
Common Quaker x1 (NFY)
These moths arrived overnight on 16th and all still there on the fence tonight, 17th. They are not for moving !
Just two moths in the trap last night here at Lower Burnt Moor
1 Yellow Horned Achlya flavicornis,
1 Brindled Beauty Lycia hirtaria
This is the 7th time I have run the trap this year and the first moths in the trap last night at last.
Not bad last night, but the title "All Change" is because every one of the moths are different to yesterday's. Fantastic! 5 mayn't seem lot but it's good to get more than one at this time in the year!
MOTH TRAP 16th March
Oak Beauty X3
Chestnut x2
I saw my first bumble bee of the year this afternoon, it was like a flying mouse. They're always a welcome sight. It's been a beautiful day, just like Spring. I hope it's a harbinger of things to come.
Fantastic night here on the trap's first all nighter of the year.
MOTH TRAP 15th March
Oak Beauty x11
Mottled Grey x3
Chestnut x2
Yellow Horned x1
Satellite x1
Tortricodes Alternella x1
March Moth x1
1 x Dotted Border.
This is a different one to the other day. The one I have today is very worn.
A very belated post but I have got round to getting this on
Moth Trap 18th February:
March Moth x1 [NFY]
Pale B B x2
1 f monocharia
1 normal
Small Tortoiseshells reported from various sites today.....................
I've seen cocoons weathering out of peat, and collected one at Upper Gorple reservoir on Sunday. It was about 30cm below the present level of peat. I wondered if they would be of interest to any Lepidopterists.
Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to transfer the images from my desktop to this blog, but if you're interested I've posted them on the Halifax Scientific Society Facebook page.
Rain overnight but I left the synergetic light on with a decent shelter over it ! Always live in hope.
I left the trap on all night even though there was a bit of rain forecast.
Both Pale Brindled Beauty still there on the fence from yesterday with a new one in the trap. Also by the trap a Dotted Border with part of a wing missing. That was it !
Just 2 moths of same species. Top one had me double checking but pretty sure they are both Pale Brindled Beauty. Both show pink abdomen though posture looks a bit different depending on their landing !
Just now in Northowram..
Satellite x 1
Ypsolopha Ustella x 1
March Moth x 1
Pale Brindled Beauty x 1
Signs of life in the garden. My first caterpillar this year, it's an Angle Shades. I've never seen such a small, (short) one before, (about 1 inch). It's still growing. Mature Angle Shades cats have a small, upright oval mark on almost every segment. The marks are off-white, with a red-brown line round them, just above the white line near their feet.This one only has two ovals, one near the tail, the other near the head. A juvenile Angle Shades caterpillar is a first for me.
It's by the bell push on our gate, I hope it finds shelter and survives the winter.
At the trap's first outing of the year, I must have picked a good night. Only one moth, but I'm off the marks now!
Moth Trap 5th Feb
Pale Brindled Beauty f.monocharia x1
