Lee Mount - 7th June

 A nice surprise this morning on the fence by the trap with a first for me. A really striking moth still on the fence at 20:15.

:

Alder Moth

Also this morning

Red-green Carpet x 1

Garden Carpet x 1

Small Phoenix x 2

White-shouldered House-moth x 1

Tachystola acroxantha x 3

Light-brown Apple-moth x 2

And another from yesterday on a small bit of heath along Rocks Lane, Ogden. There were 6 or more of these chasing around a patch of billberry and suspect by the dark colour and length of the antenna that they are probably Adela reaumurella (?)

Cold Edge

Small Heath 2

Also 2 Large Red damselflies, + another at Wainstalls

 Luddenden this week  1st to 5th June

Finally got going with these species this week

Common Pug  

Autumn Green Carpet

Knot Grass

Poplar Hawkmoth

Rustic Shoulder Knot

Scalloped Hazel

Small Phoenix

White-spotted Pug

Foxglove Pug

Pale Tussock

Grey Pine Carpet

Tawny-barred Angle

White Ermine

Buff Ermine

Ingrailed Clay

Bufftip

Green Carpet

5th June

Clouded Border

Foxglove Pug 2

Bufftip

Brown Silver-line 2

Common Pug 6

Flame Carpet

Knot Grass 2

Common Swift

White-spotted Pug

Lime Speck Pug

Double meaning of courtship song in a moth.

In case anyone is interested, I found this on line just now;

Double meaning of courtship song in a moth:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4100508/ 

Also, last night at 8:30 pm, Anne and I were sat in the the garden enjoying a glass or two of a very fine wine. We saw about ten Light Brown Apple moths, flying around each other, not two feet from Anne's head. Some of you may remember that one of Anne's brothers used to pretend he had a moth in his hands and was going to let it go in her face. She was very young, and terrified. This went on for a few years, she became frightened of moths.

Very slowly over the last ten years or so, I would show her moths sleeping in the garden. Last night was a break through, she held her hand out near the moths, hoping one would settle on her finger. As they moved a way, she put her hand near them again. Isn't that wonderful?

Right, I think I saw a post recently by Andy (?) mentioning moths dancing a courtship dance. I think he called it, "lecking". I'm not sure of the spelling and can't find the term online. Could someone please verify the term and give it's etymology? (Is it a local term, or an accepted one, in the moth world?). I'd be grateful, as I can't find a mention of it.

We had one LBA on the door this morning.

Lee Mount - 6th June

A really poor start to the day..... empty moth trap after what seemed a perfect night for them - mild and muggy. Just a pug to sort !

Then the day improved. 
A walk in the park woodland, we disturbed a Snout which came to rest on a leaf.  

Got home and saw something fluttering in the water down a rain gully. Took the grate off and pulled out a Herald. Put it on the house wall to dry out and after an hour or so it left unscathed. 

Herald - after a soaking !

Next, a butterfly in our neighbours garden. Painted Lady nectering on some ground cover Phlox. 

Then looked up and an adult Peregrine was circling overhead with what looked like a Starling in its 

talons. 

Painted Lady

A few from june

I am only running the MV every few nights to give the previous catch time to disperse. Not huge numbers of species so far but a nice mix and every one is a new record for the site :)

Poplar Hawk just one on 1st was nice to show my neighbours

Green Silver lines was also nice to have as I would not have expected them this high up.

Peppered Moth (not melanic)

Small Elephant Hawkmoth saved in a pot in the fridge to show my neighbours later was the first one I have seen for years though I know its not uncommon

Micros have been noticable by their absence

Nematopogon schwarziellus 2 of these on the 1st

Plutella xylostella one last night probably on its way from the huge rapeseed fields around Wakefield/ Mirfield :)

Rishworth - 2 moths but a decent one

 Very quiet last night but very pleased with one of the moths.

Silver Ground Carpet x1

Muslin Moth x1 (NFG)

I believe Muslin Moth isn't particularly common here. If that's true, should I add a picture?

Lee Mount - 5th June

Still quiet..

Silver-ground Carpet x 1

Scalloped Hazel (f nigra) x 1

Light-brown Applemoth x1

Brown Housemoth x 1

Ogden

 Small copper outside the classroom today, lots of whites fluttering about but no chance to firmly ID

Stainland.

3rd June:

1 x Bee Moth (male)

1 x Garden Carpet

Lee Mount - 4th June

 Expected more than I got overnight but still some nice moths..

Green Silver-lines x 1

Brimstone Moth x 1

Heart and Dart x 1

Garden Carpet x 1

Light-brown Apple-moth x 1

Bee Moth x 2

Twenty-plume Moth x 1

Green Silver-lines

Heart and Dart

Wall Brown

Monday at Clock Face Quarry, Barkisland

 

Rishworth - 28th, 30th, 31st of May and 2nd June - Fantastic Last Night!

 Somewhat quiet throughout the end of May but everything picked up last night. A year ago today I was getting Small Elephant Hawk Moths.

Moth trap 28th May:

Autumn Green Carpet x1 [NFY]

Lesser Swallow Prominent x1 [NFY]

Brown Silver Lines x3 [NFY]

Brindled Pug x2

Buff Ermine x1 [NFY]

Pale Tussock x1 [NFY]

Common Quaker x1

Moth trap 30th May:

Flame Shoulder x1 [NFY]

Lesser Swallow Prominent x1

Moth Trap 31st May:

Lesser Swallow Prominent x2

Moth Trap 2nd June:

Barred Hook Tip x1 [NFG]

Spectacle x1

Poplar Hawk Moth x2 [NFY]

Peppered Moth x1 [NFY]

Marbled White Spot x4 [NFY]

Silver Ground Carpet x1 [NFY]

Brown Silver Lines x1

Garden Carpet x2 [NFY]

Flame Shoulder x1

Bee Moth x3 [NFY]

Smoky Wainscot x1 [NFY]

Green Pug x1 [NFY]

Barred Hook Tip, Rishworth, 2nd of June

Marbled White Spot, Rishworth, 2nd June

Green Hairstreaks....

 Although it has been a slow year for butterfly species in general ,it seems that it has been perfect for Green Hairstreak with good numbers recorded from  18th April to 2nd June and still on the wing now with DJS reporting 10 yesterday it only shows for a couple of weeks  some years ....!! ..Many thanks for all the records . 

I was very pleased to hear that Andrew Sladdin got his first this year on Caslte Carr road after reading this blogg...All butterfly records most welcome

Stainland.

 Another first for me - a Scalloped Hazel. It's a good thing that the markings made it easy to ID. This sample has an upturned abdomen, it's been like that since 11.00 pm last night. I haven't found a photo online with one doing that. Is it quite common for them to rest with an upturned abdomen? I'm simply curious. It's a lovely moth.

Scalloped Hazel

Lee Mount - 2nd June

 Continuing slight improvement in the trap this morning

Small Phoenix x 2

Shuttle-shaped Dart x 1

Garden Carpet x 1

Flame carpet x 1

Twenty-plume Moth x 1

White-shouldered House-moth x 1

Tachystola acroxantha x 3

Gracillaria syringella x 1

Gracillaria syringella

Ogden - 1st June

 We went searching the known spots for Mother Shipton's this afternoon but failed...

No matter............

In the heath-land area we did find...

Green Hairstreaks 10+ though they took some searching for but eventually found a group chasing about and not staying in the billberry bushes for long. One pair were spiraling up and down above a short, stubby sycamore.

Silver Y x 1

Common Heath x 6

Small Copper x 1

Peacock x 1

Best shots I could get ...

Green Hairstreak - with a missing antenna 

Silver Y 

Small Copper

Earlier in the day Ringby Lane (up from the ski-slope above Boothtown) produced ..

Small Tortoiseshell x 10

Small White x 2

On the west slope of heather and bilberry

Common Heath x c20

Silver-ground Carpet x 1

Brimstone

Arrived home earlier today to find this beauty waiting for me by the door

 

Cold Edge

Female Black darter

 

Lee Mount - 1st June

Small Phoenix x 1

Light-brown Apple-moth x 1

Bee Moth x 1

Common Pug x 1

Rustic Shoulder-knot x 1 (much paler than the one here on 30th May)

Tachystola acroxantha x 1

Also a Cinnabar - yesterday afternoon in the local graveyard 

Small Phoenix

Rustic Shoulder-knot

Bee Moth

Cromwell Botton 29th May

 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 , 

Lee Mount - 30th May

Update (30th May) from those below..

V-Pug x 1

Garden Carpet x 1

Agonopterix alstromeriana x 1

Agonopterix alstromeriana

V-Pug (quite faded)

Scalloped Hazel x 1  -f nigra

Rustic Shoulder-knot x 1 (only the fourth record for here)

Common Marbled Carpet x 1 (orange blaze)

Light-brown Apple-moth x 2

Brown House-moth x 1

White-spotted Pug x 1 (still checking this one)

Mottled Pug x 1 (TBC)

Rustic Shoulder-knot

Mottled Pug (TBC) 

with upturned abdomen - is this a consistent feature?

More butterflies today !

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.

Prompted by the Small Copper we took off up to Ploughcroft and the hill above Boothtown and Claremount on this sunny afternoon. We were not disappointed..

Wall x 2

Small Tortoiseshell x 20+

Record shots only but I'll see if they are good enough to post later !

Mixenden / Ogden golf course

Small Heath butterflies x 2 we're the first for the year on an area of close cropped turf and a nice

 selection of ground cover flowers. 

Plenty of Green-veined Whites (maybe 30+) especially at the lower end of the golf course in Carr's Beck along with a few Small Whites 

and 20+ Orange-tips. 

Just one Peacock and no sign of any Small Tortoiseshells. 
I couldn't find any Green Hairstreaks in the heather / bilberry, just a couple of  Common Heath moths. 

Also from yesterday on Shroggs reclaimed landfill - looks like Bird-cherry Ermine are preparing to scoff the leaves in due course......

Lee Mount - 29th May

 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 !

Ruby Tiger

Light-brown Apple-moth x 2 on the fence

Brown House-moth x 1 inside the house

Hoping to find some day flying moths today ! We'll see...

Shroggs reclaimed landfill site - 28th May

 Spent an hour or so on the site. Not a lot but it's enjoyable to look, and it's a start !

Speckled Wood x 1

Green-veined White x 2 (it's a shame the grass stem got in the way)

Also Peacock x 2

Chamomile Shark

 Only 2 moths last night this beautiful Chamomile Shark and a Poplar Hawkmoth

BARRYS MOTH NIGHT THIS SATURDAY AT CROMWELL BOTTOM ,ALL WELCOME

Stainland.

 One Bee Moth this morning. 

The moths are starting to come, slowly.  Once the weather starts to warm up, it should get more lively.

Rishworth last night

 Spectacle x1 (NFY) 

Double Striped Pug x1 (NFY)

Brown Silver Lines x1 (NFY)

Finally some vaguely summery moths and weather!

Lee Mount - 27th May

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 !

Flame Carpet

Cold Edge dams this afternoon - Common Carpet x 2 - both on/around dandelion flowers. Also a few Orange-tip butterflies but a total lack of any other species.

Common Carpet

Bits and bats

 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

Stainland.

 My first Garden Carpet of the year.

Garden Carpet

Stainland.

 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.

 

All about Dragonflies and Damselflies.

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.

Oak Eggar from Walshaw Dean

 

Not a moth but...

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.

Moth Fly

Ogden Water

 Tuesday 18th 

1 x brimstone flying over picnic area at Ogden

2x orange tip

1x peacock

Lee Mount - 17th May

Every moth is precious at the moment !

One moth so far tonight........

Oak Nycteoline

(This time last year it was Fox Moths on Soil Hill)

Lee Mount - 15th May

Just 2 moths
Common Pug x 1
Garden Carpet x 1

Stainland.

 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.

Stainland.

 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.

Twenty Plume.

Lee Mount - unexpected surprise !

Last year I managed to collect eggs from a Lesser Swallow Prominent

Eggs laid - 27th April 2020

Eggs hatched - 14th May ( I raised the caterpillars on birch leaves till they pupated)

4 adults emerged 27th July 2020

7 pupa did not produce anything but were still intact so I re-potted in an ice cream box with compost and left them in the garden hut overwinter.

This morning - an adult (2 images below) had emerged overnight - wonder if there are another 6 to come ? - I'll wait and see !

Lesser Swallow Prominent

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.

Green Hairstreak

Barry's Cromwell Moth Night is Back...yipeeeeeeeeeeee

This Saturday night 8th May,,,9 onwards all welcome ..if anybody need a lift give me a shout...or leave a message......lets hope its not freezing or raining..... :::: )))))))

Emperor Moths and an Enquiry about running moth nights at Cromwell Bottom Local Nature Reserve

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.

Lee Mount

Nothing much doing at all these last few days - still cold !

Hebrew Character x 2

Common Quaker x 2

Brown House-moth x 1

High Royd this afternoon

1 male Orange-tip

1 Small Tortoiseshell

Both of them on Dandelions