Not quite as active a night in nor around the actinic lure as it gradually got windier. But, still a reasonable number of specimens seen and a couple more NFYs.
Of interest a leucistic male Muslin, Tawn/Marbled Minor agg (NFY), Willow Beauty (NFY).
Also showing up Flame Shoulder, Common Pug(2), Bee Moth, Waved Umber, H&D, SSD, and non-aberrant male Muslin.
Pale ProminentWillow BeautyTawny/Marbled Minor agg.Leucistic male Muslin
I tried to get an open-wing shot of the Pale Prominent sat on my stone staging, but it hopped off quickly and disappeared. Saw it on my office carpet a couple of hours later, let it fly to the window…got a sort of open-wing shot, but it was too flitty for focus.
Thank goodness for mothing…it’s certainly a distraction from the bleak outlook and political bullshine of the coronavirus, Covid-19 debacle. Thing is for much of this year, there haven’t been many moths drawn to actinic light lures that I’ve heard off. Lepidopterists on the various lep Facebook groups and around our county here have been reporting low number and low diversity.
Cream-bordered Green PeaBee Moth
However, that changed somewhat for my lure on the night of the 75th Anniversary of VE-Day. I’d spent much of the time handling virtual online events, such as my #FEVEG20, but by the evening, just after dark and after a couple of celebrater sherbets, the light lure beckoned.
Female MuslinRustic Shoulder-knot
It was a still, balmy evening, it had dropped from 24 degrees to around 15 Celsius at 23h00 and there was quite a bit of activity around the lure. flies, parasitic wasps, Bee Moths, Pugs, a Brimstone…a Pale Tussock, and more. There was a stunningly white with black spots, female Muslin on a California poppy stem next to the pond 5 metres away from the actinic. Intriguingly, some of the moths were more drawn to a bright LED panel I was using to have a quick look at the frogs in the pond (only one of the two has been visible this last week, #PondLife). No sign of any Box-tree Moth, the notoriously virulent beast from the East. They will emerge soon, I have warned neighbours who have planted a Box hedge that they could see it ravaged. They make nice hedges but now that this invasive species taking hold across various parts of the country, those hedges will succumb.
Red Twin-spot CarpetWaved Umber
Anyway, the Pale Tussock had been joined by another by morning in the collecting box, there were more pugs, more Bee Moths, and a couple more Brimstone (not to be confused with the Brimstone butterfly). Here’s the full list of the Saturday morning haul; NFY = New for year:
Bee Moth (3), Brimstone (3), Common Pug (4), Cream-bordered Garden Pea (NFY), Argyrotaenia ljungiana (NFY), Eudonia angustea (NFY), Female Muslin, Flame Shoulder (NFY), Freyer’s Pug (NFY), Garden Carpet (2), Grey/Dark Dagger agg (NFY), Heart and Dart (2), Light-brown Apple Moth (2), male Muslin, Notocelia cynosbatella (NFY), Pale Tussock (2, NFY), Rustic Shoulder-knot (NFY, deceased), Shuttle-shaped Dart (12), Waved Umber.
Grey/Dark Dagger agg.Flame Shoulder
Still hearing from others that they are hardly seeing any moths and yet some people with mercury vapour lures elsewhere in the country are seeing a whole lot more.
Pale TussockNotocelia cynosbatellaCochylimorpha straminea
I have spent the last week organising another virtual “open mic” session, this one as part of our lockdown, social isolation VE Day celebrations in the village. I persuaded several local musicians to contribute a song or two.
The Fen Edge VE-day Go-as-you-please (#FEVEG) features Barbara “Daphne” Duckworth, Ms Grice (via Nadina Grice), Lucy Maynard, Danielle Padley, Chloe “Clarissa” Watson, David Bradley, Patrick Coughlan, Will Hall (via Stephanie Louise Hall, Julian Lerway. The D&CÂ sequence is by Georgia Duckworth.
It premiered at 08h00 prompt on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, 8th May 2020 in the Fen Edge unEvents group on Facebook:
If you’re wondering what materials to use to stitch together your antiviral mask, it seems it could be that you need a couple of different fabrics for it to work best – woven cotton and a piece of silk or chiffon…
Tightly woven cotton acts as a physical barrier to viral particles and droplets carrying the virus. Silk and chiffon can both build up quite a static charge and this will help trap viral particles electrostatically.
Together the materials will reduce the risk of the wearer shedding virus from nose or mouth into the environment and on to other people or surfaces that others might touch. Conversely, the mask will, to some extent reduce the risk of you inhaling viral particles from the air. The researchers say that substituting chiffon or silk for flannel or using a cotton quilt with cotton-polyester backing could be just as effective. But, Sciencebase would add that it’s not so strong a fashion statement
There is also the added benefit of wearing a facemask in that it will reduce how often you touch your nose and mouth with your filthy, disease-ridden hands. Now go and wash them thoroughly with plenty of soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds!
Before the Covid-19 lockdown I was working with my Editor at Chemistry World on a feature article on the hazards of handling, and specifically not mixing, different cleaning agents, such as ammonia, acids, bleaches etc. The article was written and edited, then Covid-19 hit hard and other materials took priority in the final editing queue.
However, last week reports came in that showed that accidental poisonings in the USA had risen dramatically during the Covid-19 lockdown compared with the same period last year. Indeed, they are up 20 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Moreover, there were more than 45000 emergency calls related to exposure to disinfectant and cleaning agents. About two-thirds of the incidents involved bleach and the others non-alcohol disinfectants and hand sanitisers. Serious problems can arise with ingestion or inhalation of fumes from any of these chemicals, but worse are the problems if certain ones are mixed as they can produce huge volumes of toxic gases, such as chlorine, and even explosive chemicals.
I spoke once more to my expert witnesses, we did the final edit, and ran the article…
Then, Trump’s illogical thought processes exploded with that ridiculous ill-informed and fundamentally stupid remark about “cleaning” the body of the germ, the virus, it’s tiny, you can’t see it, by injecting disinfectant or radiating someone with ultraviolet light. Neither idea has any basis in medicine and both are incredibly dangerous! Of course, you can kill the virus with disinfectant or soap and water. You can kill it with ultraviolet let, even sunlight will kill it. But, you cannot treat someone infected with it by injecting such chemicals into their body or irradiating them. Sheesh, he makes “Dubya” look almost intelligent…
Anyway, the feature article on not mixing cleaning agents is now live on the Chemistry World website and is getting a lot of reads and a lot of social media shares.
Mrs Sciencebase spotted this fellow roosting in the garden last night…it was the moth that was roosting, not Mrs Sb. It’s a Purple Thorn. So-called because the larva (caterpillar), which is stick-like in appearance has a spiky projection and the adult has a purple hue to its wings.
Ten-frame focus-stacked shot
Its scientific name (binomial) is Selenia tetralunaria. It has four white crescent moon shapes on its wings, hence the tetralunaria of its binomial. Selenia is the genus and there are a couple of dozen of this type of moth around the world, a fraction of the 180,000 different known moths (and butterflies, same thing)
While we’re still allowed out of our homes for a period of exercise each day, have a listen out for some of the birds that are singing and calling right now, various migrants and others you may not have noticed above traffic noise even in the countryside previously:
People often tell me they don’t know what that bird is they can hear singing or calling but cannot see. There’s an international crowd-sourced project called Xeno Canto that has the calls and songs of almost every bird around the world. But, for local friends and family who might want to know what they can hear in the gardens, here’s a small selection of some of the more likely in England:
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Robin
Blackbird
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Dunnock
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Starling
House Sparrow
Most of these birds will have a song and a call, some of them seem to improvise or do abbreviated versions of their songs and calls. The sound files you can listen to above are just a starting point for learning how to identify birds you might hear in your garden and then associate them with a visual ID.
Day-flying moths among the tops of the sycamores today
Adela reaumurella, the Green Long-horn Moth, is a species of moth belonging to the family Adelidae. It is a small moth with a wingspan of around 12-15 mm. The forewings are metallic green, the hindwings slightly darker. The most distinctive feature of this moth is the long antennae that can be twice as long as the wingspan. The Green Long-horn Moth is widely distributed throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It can be found in a variety of habitats, including woodlands, heathlands, and grasslands.
The species typically has two generations per year. The first generation emerges in May or June, and the second generation emerges in August or September. The larvae feed on leaf litter.
The species is not considered to be a threatened species. However, like many moth species, it is under-recorded and little is known about its population status. As with many Lepidoptera, it plays an important role in the ecosystem as a pollinator of flowers. It is also a valuable indicator species for monitoring the health of woodland habitats.
There’s an interesting quote purportedly from Arundhati Roy that’s been doing the rounds on social media for a few days. She says something about pandemics making us think of the way forward anew…if only.
Did the massive flu pandemic of a century ago force us to break with the past? What about SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, Ebola, Bird Flu, bovine TB, foot and mouth. I don’t think much changed after any of them…
Sadly, it feels like we restarted after the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed on the same industrial, destructive trajectory begun by the Victorians all the way through the 20thC and into this one…giving us the climate crisis, pollution, various animal and plant extinctions, desertification, coral bleaching, deforestation, and even more frequent emergent pathogens than we had before…oh and all those wars…
Look at the people on the streets protesting lockdown while thousands die…once this is over, it won’t be business as usual for a long time, but you can bet that ultimately we’ll go back to our old ways.
Did the massive flu pandemic of a century ago force us to break with the past? What about SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, Ebola, Bird Flu, bovine TB, foot and mouth. I don’t think much changed after any of them…