Green Carpet , Brown Silver Lines , Flame Shoulder , Mottled Pug , Common Pug , Silver Ground Carpet , Red Green Carpet , ,Garden Carpet , Heart and Dart , Peppered Moth , White Spotted Pug , V - Pug , Scalloped HAzel , Clouded Bordered Brindle , Square Spot Rustic , 20 Plume ,
Sitting in the conservatory a Small Copper x 1 landed on a double daisy in a garden pot. Don't often get those in our garden.
Just one moth in the trap this morning though I did expect a few more with it being so much warmer and overcast last night and a bright morning today !
BARRYS MOTH NIGHT THIS SATURDAY AT CROMWELL BOTTOM ,ALL WELCOME
One Bee Moth this morning.
The moths are starting to come, slowly. Once the weather starts to warm up, it should get more lively.
Spectacle x1 (NFY)
Double Striped Pug x1 (NFY)
Brown Silver Lines x1 (NFY)
Finally some vaguely summery moths and weather!
Flame Carpet x 1 in the trap this morning and nothing else. Hopefully a start of better things to come if the temperature starts to increase !
Nettle tap on pink forget me nots now here in the garden. Green hairstreak on great manshead 2wks ago. trap will be on tonight for the first time in what feels like ages
A new moth for me, (whatever it is). I have spent several hours trying to get an ID on this. I think It's a Flame Carpet - Xanthorhoe designata. Could someone please ID it for me? Thanks.
There is a book titled, "Dragonflies and Damselflies: A Natrural History by Dennis Paulson", £25 now £10. It's available from :
www.bibliophilebooks.com
It's in this months Bibliophile Books catalogue. The book covers them from all over the world, as well as UK. It's described as comprensive and beautifully illustrated. It covers classification, evolution, place in the food chain, mating, life cycle, and their relationship with humans. It's a comprehensive natural history resource, (it says here).
It sounds like a bargin.
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
