David Bradley – David Bradley

Welcome to Planet Earith

One of our local nature reserves has been created from retired gravel pits. It’s known as RSPB Ouse Fen and it’s split across three patches with some active gravel and sand excavations still underway in between*. One patch, the Needingworth side, I mentioned several years ago. The second patch, which is across the river via Brownshill Staunch, can be referred to as the Over end the more recently opened patch is at the village of Earith.

According to the RSPB website on the subject:

“…when the project is fully complete, Ouse Fen along with its neighbouring RSPB nature reserves; Fen Drayton Lakes and the Ouse Washes, will form a near continuous 3000 hectare wetland habitat, around half the area of the nearby city of Ely.”

We visit these places a lot. I’ve mentioned theem here a lot too, not least with reference to Short-eared Owls, vast Starling murmurations (half a million birds in March 2024), Clouded Yellow butterfly irruptions, and Chinese Water Deer (non-native, invasive species). The Earith section is a lovely spot, but often it’s quite quiet in terms of birds.

Today was different.

Black-headed Gull activity was high, first Common Tern of our year spotted, nine Hobbies catching insects on the wing, three or four Marsh Harriers courting on the wing, Water Rail squealing out of sight, numerous Little Grebe wabbling in the water. There were Grey Heron, Little Egret, Great White Egret, Coot, Moorhen, Kestrel, Rooks and Carrion Crow, dozens of Sand Martin, Pheasant, Blackbird, Whitethroat, Wigeon and numerous other ducks, Great Black-backed Gull, Leser Black-backed Gull, Linnet, Snipe, Redshank, Starling, Mute Swan (and according to the Merlin app, Bewick and Whooper, and Pectoral Sandpiper! Yeah, right!), Wood Sandpiper, Cormorant, Blue Tit, Lapwing, Oystercatcher, Canada Geese and Greylag Geese overhead, a few overheard Bearded Reedling and Sedge Warbler, Reed Buntings, lots of Cetti’s Warbler, lots of Reed Warbler, and we missed it, but last year’s Great Reed Warbler seems to have turned up again.

There were lots of Bittern booming and on our second fruitless pass of the GRW spot, we saw six Bittern ducking in and out of one patch of reeds. Most I’ve ever seen together in one sitting was two lots of two on the wing. It’s an amazing comeback for a once almost-extinct (in the UK) species. Its resurgence is largely down to conservation efforts and the creation of new wetland habitat from these ex-gravel pits.

Four of the six Bitterns that were in and out of this patch at RSPB Ouse Fen Earith

*The works have been running for a decade and have another twenty years to go. They take out something like 2 million tonnes of sand and gravel annually. I think they’re reporting that they’ve removed about 16 million tonnes in total so far. Other smaller gravel quarries in the area, such as the one even more local to us here in Cottenham, down Long Drove, have been back-filled and restored to arable farmland.

Decanting wine

Lots of people uncork their red wine some time before they intend to drink it. The idea is to let it breathe. This has to be deceived wisdom, surely? There may be the point that the wine will get to room temperature if left to stand on the table for a while, but the exposed surface area is not much bigger than a penny. There’s very little chance of atmospheric gases, and specifically oxygen, getting into the wine and doing any meaningful chemistry. Namely, there won’t be any real softening of the astringent tannins in the wine.

red wine1

Now, my late Dad used to be in catering (for years before he retrained as a railway engineer) and something he was taught almost from day one was that a less expensive bottle of red, the house wine, could be persuaded to taste ever so slightly better by rapidly decanting it. Of course, a hotel or restaurant’s house red, should be a fabulous bottle regardless of price. It’s meant to represent the house, La Maison, after all. Worth noting, that it’s a good idea to gently decant wines with a sediment to allow that to be trapped in the bottom of the bottle and not end up in one’s glass.

But, does decanting do enough to aerate the wine and make a difference to the taste. It may well have some effect on the wine, some lighter volatile compounds will evaporate to some extent, and perhaps lose some undesirable congeners. The sulfur-containing compounds used as preservatives might be lost to the atmosphere, which can be beneficial in many ways. The influx of bubbles from the decanting process might even give the wine a different feel in the mouth, just as la crema on an espresso somehow makes it taste different from a flat coffee.

There’s very little time or chemical impetus for oxidation of bitter tannins to take place even when decanting, and especially not when simply swirling wine in the glass or sucking it noisily through one’s teeth as is the wont of many a connoisseur.

There have been several studies that show at best very, very modest changes in the chemistry of a bottle of wine after decanting or flushing through one of those gimmicky aerator devices. Realistically, you probably need to open and rapidly decant a bottle of red the day before you intend to drink it to get any benefit whatsoever…but that’s not really recommended. Chances are, in this house, it would be drunk that day and another bottle opened for the following day’s session!

I think much of the fluff and bluster surrounding wine appreciation is to do with the anticipation and the ceremony. And, as any proper drinker knows, the second glass always tastes better.

Ways to boost your moth count

As regular readers know all too well, I am an amateur lepidopterist, and have been since the summer of 2018. I trap in our small back garden and have used various traps – Robinson, Heath, Skinner, and various light sources, although mostly UV fluorescent tubes and a LepiLED. It’s early in the 2025 season and I am thinking about ways to optimise my trapping to see if I can get my life list up to 600 species this year; currently stands at 574 and for the last two to three yeasr, I usually record at least 30 species new to the garden each year.

I have often wondered whether placement in the garden matters. It doesn’t seem to. So, at the moment, I am trapping with the Skinner on a table beneath a lean-to, looking out to the garden. In the trap, I place various narrow egg trays, sloping against the sides, but wondering whether a layer of crumpled cardboard in the base might be useful to provide even more roosting spots. Behind the trap a white sheet hangs and at this time of year seems to be getting more moths than enter the trap.

Another question I have is whether I should narrow the Skinner slot. Making the entrance smaller might reduce the number that can enter, but it will reduce the size of their escape route too. I’ve tried in-trap baffles hanging beneath the slot previously but not sure that really had any effect. I was advised by a more-expert amateur not to narrow the slot and not to use Robinson-type vanes, but to add those baffles. I think I might go against the grain this season and try a baffle and a narrower slot, see what happens, at least for a few lighting-up sessions.

Moth trapping is a fascinating hobby where science, hobby, and nature really meet and the data you obtain can be fed into citizen science schemes as well as straight to your local county moth recorder. Also, if you suffer from mottephobia but like butterflies, remember that butterflies are just a type of moth. There’s no difference, no matter what they say. Asking what is the difference between butterflies and moths, is like asking what is the difference between ladybirds and beetles…ladybirds are beetles.

When the Bittern booms

The call of a cryptic Bittern hidden in a reedbed is one of the most evocative sounds of nature at this time of year. The sound is known as booming, but it’s more like the sound of someone blowing across the top of an empty drinks bottle. Earlier in the season, the frisky males started warming up with some guttural grunts, progressing to the full bottle when they sense the females might be receptive.

If you were out and about in the fens not twenty years ago, chances of hearing a booming Bittern were very low as the bird was all-but extinct in England. Habitat creation and other conservation efforts have led to a resurgence. So, most walks we take at this time of year among our fenland reserves, many of which are essentially repurposed and planted gravel pits, will reward us with a few booms and an occasional flypast.

Bittern in flight

I was walking at RSPB Berry Fen this morning. I’d picked up a whole lot of different warblers – Chiff Chaff, Reed Warbler, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, and Garden Warbler [What’s a warbler, anyway? Ed.] and a few Great White Egret, Little Egret, and Grey Heron as well as the usual ducks, crows, gulls, and cormorants. I was at the most northerly part of the fen close to one of those repurposed gravel pits known as Barleycroft Lake (part of RSPB Ouse Fen) and just about to head into the lake area when a male Bittern, appeared, flying low from the lake area. You can tell it’s a male from the pale blue marking on the lores. In ornithology, the lore is the patch between eye and bill on the side of a bird’s head. It’s usually featherless and sometimes coloured, as is the case with male Bitterns.

Bittern in flight

There are reeds on the edge of that lake, so presumably that’s this male’s usual patch, but it flew out over the dry edge of Berry Fen, sortied a rather brief reconnaissance flight, turned tail, presumably when it realised there was no reedy cover when it saw me and quickly, flew back into the lake area. Luckily, I had a few seconds of its U-turn to grab a few snapshots as it flew past silently. No sonic boom.

Bittern in flight

The bittern, Botaurus stellaris, is grouped with the herons, storks, and ibises, but obviously most closely resembles a heron than a stork or ibis.

Moth pheromones

I have written about moth pheromones several times over the years, mostly since I started mothing. Specifically, the chemistry of the sex pheromone produced by the female Emperor moth. Pheromones can be used to attract and trap what some people might refer to as pest species, but they can also be used scientifically just as one uses a UV light to attract moths for local monitoring.

I have a range of pheromones in little vials and soaked into various rubber bungs (they come from the supplier like that), which can be hung outside at various times of year to attract specific species, such as the clearwing moths and the Emperor.

The pheromones can be bought from various suppliers, but Anglia Lepidopteral Supplies (ALS) are the company I’ve used. I’ve had great success every year with the EMP lure, and most of the clearwings as well as a couple of other lures for some less well-known micro moths.

The really interesting thing about pheromone lures is that they’re usually mixtures of various chemicals that the moths produce to attract a mate. As such, some of them also attract non-target species, which home in on one of the other chemicals present, or even the target pheromone if they use the same one themselves. ALS gives its customers a list of dozens of moths that might be by-catch when using a moth pheromone for a particular target species. This week, I hung the CUL lure, which targets the clearwing known as Synanthedon culiciformis, the Large Red-belted Clearwing. I am yet to see this moth in the garden, or indeed anywhere. It’s slightly early for it to be flying, but lots of flora and fauna have been appearing earlier than usual this year, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Within seconds of putting out the lure, I saw a couple of micros approaching. Tiny Nemopogon species as it happens. The only one ALS lists as a putative by-catch for the CUL lure is N. clematella, although the lure can draw in quite a few other species:

Synanthedon myopaeformis (Red-belted Clearwing), Phlogophora meticulosa (Angle Shades), Agnathosia mendicella, Alcis repandata (Mottled Beauty), Pammene aurana, Pammene suspectana, Camptogramma bilineata (Yellow Shell), Coleophora amethystinella, Diaphora mendica (Muslin Moth), Endotricha flammealis, Eudonia mercurella, Glyphipterix simpliciella, Nemapogon clematella, Triaxomera fulvimitrella

I’ve had several of those species to the UV lamp over the years and Red-belted to this lure and its own specific lure.

The Nemapogon species I caught this week, looks most like the Grain Moth (N. granella), but as expert moth ID man, Sean Foote, pointed out it’s most likely to be that species, but impossible to know without doing gen det. It could, for instance, be N. variatella or a dull N. cloacella. Neither of those are mentioned by ALS as putative by-catch. Gen det is beyond me, so technically I should report this moth as Nemopogon agg, i.e. as an aggregrated species only identifiable to genus level without additional information. I have mentioned the catch to the team at ALS to see what they think.

Beating British bird crime

The RSPB highlighted its latest UK Bird Crime Report in this month’s magazine and urged members to help spread the word.

The report covers the illegal persecution of birds of prey (raptors) between 2009 and 2023, revealing routine and widespread criminal activity—much of it linked to the gamebird shooting industry. Beyond the ecological damage caused by releasing millions of pheasants and partridges into the countryside each year, we must confront the deeper issue: it’s time to stop killing wildlife for sport.

The report confirms over 1,500 incidents of raptor persecution, though the real number is likely far higher due to underreporting. More than half of the confirmed cases occurred on land used for pheasant, partridge, or grouse shooting. Shockingly, three-quarters of those convicted had ties to the gamebird shooting industry, and more than two-thirds were gamekeepers.

It’s a disgrace.

In the not-so-distant past, raptors were hunted to the brink of extinction. Over the last fifty years, dedicated conservation efforts have brought species like the Red Kite and White-tailed Eagle back from the edge, and have worked to protect Hen Harriers and Goshawks. But these efforts are continually undermined by a profit-driven industry that sees birds of prey as little more than a nuisance.

Hen Harriers, Golden Eagles, Peregrines, Red Kites, and White-tailed Eagles are still routinely shot, trapped, or poisoned. Offenders often go to great lengths to destroy evidence, making successful prosecutions difficult.

Most bird crime takes place in remote areas, often goes unnoticed, and is rarely punished. Current wildlife protection laws are inadequate, and the penalties don’t go far enough to deter offenders. Scotland has taken steps to strengthen its laws. It’s time the rest of the UK followed suit.

Dark Ash Bud Moth – Prays ruficeps

A new moth for the garden last night to the 30W UV U-tube. Having been attracted to the light, it didn’t actually enter the Robinson trap and simply sat on the grubby white sheet hanging behind it. Prays ruficeps is its scientific binomial.

The English vernacular name for this little, black micro moth is the Dark Ash Bud Moth. As the name would suggest, it’s not a brightly coloured moth, although its head is orange. Its larvae feed on Ash (fraxinus). However, there is a complication, until recent DNA testing was carried out this species was simply recorded as a dark, melanic, form of the closely related P. fraxinella, the Ash Bud Moth and wasn’t considered to be a separate species. It ws formally known as Prays fraxinella rustica. This means that the old research on this species was simply lumped together with the original species, according to the UK Moths site, and so little is known about it as a distinct species.

Something I have mentioned before is that often vernacular names for micro moths don’t exist or if they do, there are conflicting names created ad hoc by various lepidopterists and the organisations. When talking science, especially to international colleagues and audiences, it is generally best to refer to the scientific binomial, the name lay people often call the Latin name for an organism. Like that most famous of dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, it’s perhaps the most well-known scientific binomial, the one used for the king of the terrible lizards. T. rex doesn’t really have a vernacular name. In fact, I’m not sure any of the dinosaurs do. So, use the binomial and we all know what you’re talking about whether terrible lizard or micro moth.

Meanwhile, I checked on the taxonomy of P. ruficeps on iNaturalist and it gave me some interesting names in other languagues – Juodoji Uosine Kandis (Lithuanian), Bruine Essenmot (Dutch), Sysisaarnikoi (Finnish), and Brun Askmal (Swedish), specifically.

Interestingly, when I looked up Sysisaarnikoi, guessing it was Finnish, Google Translate says that word means “carboniferous”. Which given the coal colouring of the moth and the association with ash, is fair enough. However, if you split the word at koi. It translates as Coal Ash Moth. Koi presumably being moth in Finnish. Split out the presumed word for ash, saarni, and it then translates the name as Autumn Ash Moth. That’s intriguing. Saarni seems to mean “coal” and “Autumn” in Finnish, is that right?

The other names seem more obvious, at least bruine and brun are perhaps obviously “brown” and essen and ask are ash, and mot and mal are moth. I can see that Uosine perhaps shares etymology with ash too. Juodoji is black in Lithuanian and Kandis is moth.

Going back to the moth’s scientific name. The species type, ruficeps, translates from Latin as red-throated, according to Google Translate. Now, given, that caput is head in Latin, I suspect it more literally translates as red-headed. Rufus being related to ruber and meaning red. But, of course, as many readers may know from my earlier ramblings, when we say red in many situations, we often mean orange, as English took another century or so after the introduction of the eponymous fruit to these isles to adopt orange as a word for the colour we think of as lying between red and yellow. Hence, Robin Redbreast, Red Admiral, Redshank, redhead, where the colour is so obviously orange, not red.

The Prays genus part of the moth’s name? Well, that’s a little more complicated. Jacob Hübner came up with the genus name in 1825. It could have come from a Greek word, praus, meaning “gentle” or “mild,” possibly alluding to the moths’ delicate nature. Or, it may have been a misinterpretation of some obscure Latin word. Most likely though and common for several of Hübner’s names, it was an arbitrary choice that he simply like the sound of.

Also to the garden trap last night, two male Muslin (Diaphora mendica) and the first Pale Mottled Willow (Caradrina clavipalpis) of the year.

Zen and the Art of Photography

Much of the pleasure in photography is seeking out the subject, appreciating the light, dialling in the settings and pressing the shutter.

For some, not so much of the pleasure is the scrolling through dozens of burst-mode images of the same thing trying to decide which one is sharpest and captures the essence of the subject best and deleting the others. Sometimes I’m happy doing that, but to be honest, the capturing process is the real fun, unless a truly unique image emerges from the roll. I’ve written about a couple of philosophical aspects of photography previously. One article was entitled Patience – an internal app to help you take better wildlife photos, which was about being mindful and taking time to get the shot you want. A second item was about stifling the urge to seek out validation for one’s photographic output on social media. That article was entitled In time, we discover ourselves.

In that latter article, I mention a friend called Andy, a professional-grade, but fiscally amateur photographer (just like me, hahahah). We often discuss the trials and tribulations of photographing nature. Of the lack of decent light, of too much sun and shadow, of not finding the subjects to snap, and of poorly performing camera settings that don’t give us the perfect shot that we hoped for. And tha endless roll scrolling and deleting.

It occurred to me, having had one of our conversations, that the best way forward would be to simply take the card out of the camera, set the camera to allow photos to be taken without the card in place, and to enjoy the moment, the thrill of the chase, the silent click of the shutter. We could simply forget about the afterburn of sorting and editing. As there would be nothing to sort nor delete. It would also save us a fortune in memory cards and cloud storage.

Indeed, one might go a step further and leave the camera at home too. Just spend time seeking out subjects or even simply appreciating those photogenic places we visit without the need to do the photo gen. Zen and the art of imaginary photography…

…of course, without all those rolls to scroll, there’d be little to do trapped indoors on a rainy day with a stinking head cold.

Aves envy and moth matters

Occasional visits to relatives who live in the leafy suburbs of Surrey always make me feel a little envious of the habitat represented by their garden and its surroundings. Lots of old oaks and other tree species beyond their fence but plenty of spots for birds (Aves) and invertebrates in their garden.

I usually get a few moments to survey the life forms in the garden and among those oaks. It doesn’t take long to build a decent garden ticklist of birds. For a recent trip:

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Buzzard, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Dunnock, Firecrest, Goldcrest, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Green Woodpecker, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Jay, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mistle Thrush, Nuthatch, Robin, Song Thrush, Stock Dove, Tawny Owl, Wood Pigeon, Wren.

I only heard and Goldcrest and it was the Merlin app that picked up the Firecrest. The Tawny Owl was a nocturnal caller, of course. Merlin claimed a Willow Warbler, but I didn’t pick that up aurally or visually. Out on a walk up to and along the Wey River added Canada Goose, Greylag Goose, Mallard, Red Kite. Was half expecting to see House Martin and Swallow, and perhaps Kingfisher, but no such luck with those.

Meanwhile, I’d brought my Skinner moth trap with me and put that out for a couple of sessions. Unfortunately, it got very cold (near freezing) during the first couple of nights and there were just a Brindled Pug (NFM) and an Early Grey. Third night was a lot warmer (10 Celsius) albeit rainy, but it brought in a much bigger moth haul. I was very pleased to see a few species I’d not seen before, NFM (new for me) moths. Data for the lighting-up session now with Surrey County Moth Recorder.

Brindled Pug (NFM)
Frosted Green x3 (NFM)
Great Prominent (NFM)
Grey Pine Carpet
Lunar Marbled Brown x3 (NFM)
Muslin
Purple Thorn x2
Red-green Carpet x2
Scarce Tissue x2 (NFM)
The Streamer

Phone photo of Brindled Pug — Brindled Pug

First Streamer of the year for me in Surrey, and also appeared in our Cambridgeshire garden the night we came home.

The Streamer, so-called because of the streamer-like markings on its forewings

The British butterfly ticklist

There are purportedly 59 extant species of butterfly in the UK. Those marked with an asterisk (twenty, as of April 2025) are ones I’ve yet to record here. There is at least one species that may be recolonising, Large Tortoiseshell. There are others that turn up sporadically, vagrants and migrants and don’t breed here.

Adonis Blue
Black Hairstreak
Brimstone
Brown Argus
Brown Hairstreak*
Chalk Hill Blue
Chequered Skipper
Clouded Yellow
Comma
Common Blue
Cryptic Wood White*
Dark Green Fritillary
Dingy Skipper
Duke of Burgundy*
Essex Skipper
Gatekeeper
Glanville Fritillary*
Grayling*
Green Hairstreak
Green-veined White
Grizzled Skipper
Heath Fritillary*
High Brown Fritillary*
Holly Blue
Large Blue*
Large Heath*
Large Skipper
Large White
Lulworth Skipper*
Marbled White
Marsh Fritillary*
Meadow Brown
Mountain Ringlet*
Northern Brown Argus*
Orange-tip
Painted Lady
Peacock
Pearl-boarded Fritillary*
Purple Emperor
Purple Hairstreak
Red Admiral
Ringlet
Scotch Argus*
Silver-spotted Skipper*
Silver-studded Blue*
Silver-washed Fritillary
Small Blue
Small Copper
Small Heath
Small Pearl-boarded Fritillary*
Small Skipper
Small Tortoiseshell
Small White
Speckled Wood
Swallowtail*
Wall
White Admiral
White-letter Hairstreak
Wood White*