Regular readers will hopefully be well aware by now that I got bitten by the mothing bug three years ago. Mrs Sciencebase spotted an enormous Copper Underwing in the garden and we were both fascinated by its size and its markings.
Poplar Hawk-moth
A friend in the village had previously offered to lend me his scientific moth trap with its UV tube and so I gave him a call and he said he would set it up that night in his garden. I could come to see what had turned up the next morning (24th July 2018). There were lots of moths in there with some weird and wonderful names – Angle Shades, Poplar Hawk-moth, Willow Beauty, Dark Arches, Burnished Brass, Ruby Tiger, Buff Ermine…the list goes on.
Elephant Hawk-moth
I was hooked and took the trap home and have been “lighting up” ever since. My “tick list” is fast approaching 400 moth species. I’ve photographed them all at least once and some of them several times. You can see my latest moth photos on the Sciencebase Instagram along with my other nature photos and other stuff. My ticklist is on my Imaging Storm website along with an archive of the Lepidoptera photos.
Six-spot Burnet
They do say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but you cannot deny that the insect world is beautiful and nowhere more so, in my opinion than in the realm of the Lepidoptera. Incidentally, butterflies are just one group within Lepidoptera, on the same branch of the family tree as the so-called micro moths, in fact.
My Mothematics Gallery can be found on my Imaging Storm photography site along with other invertebrates, flora and fauna, etc. I’ve written about several of the species I’ve seen for various outlets, but haven’t yet got around to adding all of the links to this list #bearwith
Incidentally, the title of this blog post was alluding to the 1975 song by Hal David (words) and Albert Hammond (music) – To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before – from Hammond’s album of that year 99 Miles from L.A. You might also know it from the 1984 cover version by Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson.
As the name of the Toadflax Brocade moth might suggest, its purported larval foodplant is toadflax, which could one of dozens of Linaria plant species. The “brocade” refers to the patterning on the wings of the moth, which might to a fanciful entomologist remind one of a heavy fabric interwoven with a rich, raised design.
Toadflax Brocade, the blur of the wings down to it vibrating them pre-flight
Anyway, we saw a solitary larva of this species on our garden waste bin a couple of years ago, I blogged it at the time. Two summers later and an adult finally made an appearance in the scientific trap last night, drawn to the 40 Watt actinic UV tube. There were a few dozen other moths in the trap, all ones that have put in several appearances over the summer weeks. It’s been a mad year in this part of Vice County 29, far fewer moths seen in far lower numbers than in the heady days of the summer of 2019.
Toadflax Brocade moth
That was my first full season with the trap and one sultry night had almost 500 specimens of more than 100 species to count and catalogue before freeing into the undergrowth some way away from the trap site. At the time of writing, 25 species new for the garden so far in 2021. There’s still plenty of time for something special to arrive, still hoping to see December Moths later in the year, of course!
Larva next to purple toadflax
According to the UK Moths site: “As a resident species, this moth is restricted to the south-east and central southern coasts of England, where it frequents mainly shingle beaches. It is a relatively recent colonist, arriving around 1950 and quickly gaining a foothold, but appears to be now in decline again.”
Purple Toadflax
Its scientific name is Calophasia lunula which hints at a heat phase and perhaps the moon-like quality of some of its wing marking…but that’s just a guess and Peter Marren doesn’t seem to mention the scientific binomial in his excellent book Emperors, Admirals & Chimney Sweepers. Actually, I recall now, a lunula is a crescent moon marking, like the white at the base of one’s fingernails. Also refers to a Bronze Age necklace.
If I’ve counted correctly, there are 14 clearwing moths that we might see in The British Isles, some more likely in some areas than others (Welsh Clearwing, for example, and Raspberry Clearwing, Cambs and Beds). They’re generally diurnal, day-flying moths, great pollinators of wildflowers and garden flowers alike.
Orange-tailed Clearwing drawn to AND lure 16 Jun 2021
You might spot some on your raspberry canes or purple loosestrife on a riverbank. However, having a pheromone lure to bring them to your garden briefly for a sighting is a more certain way to see these amazing creatures. I’ve got a selection of pheromone lures from Anglia Lepidopterist Supplies, which have drawn a few.
Red-tipped drawn to FOR lure 14 Jun 2021
Once drawn to the lure, the moth can be observed and photographed, the lure packed away in the freezer until next year and the moths meanwhile released back into the wild away from any watchful insectivorous birds (I’m looking at you Robin and Blackbird!)
Red-belted Clearwing (MYO) 7 Jun 2021, then 14 to CUL lure 13 Jun 2021
They’re all quite small moths but all superficially resemble wasps in various ways, an evolutionary adaptation to confound predators.
Currant Clearwing (TIP) 12 Jun 2021Raspberry Clearwing (HYL) 19 Jul 2021Red-tipped Clearwing (FOR) 14 Jun 2021
I do have a lure for another moth with clear wings that is even more like a waspish creature, the Hornet Moth, unfortunately, it’s past their flying season and I did not see a single one during any luring session unfortunately, although I know from another moth-er in the village that they are in our locality.
Yellow-legged Clearwing – drawn to AND not VES 13 Jun 2021
UPDATE: 26 Aug 2022 – Convolvulus arrived to the tobacco plants in the garden after dusk. A rare sight in Cambridgeshire.
There are about 20 hawk-moths that you might come across in The British Isles, some far more often than others. Some are day-flying (diurnal), some night-flying (nocturnal), some drawn to light others preferring sweet nectar. These moths sit in the Sphingidae grouping, and are more generally known as Sphinx moths elsewhere.
Having spent a morning photographing Marbled White butterflies and Six-spot Burnet, Brassy Longhorn, and Burnet Companion moths on Trumpington Meadows near Cambridge I was inspired to travel slightly further afield to see if I could find any more interesting species of Lepidoptera. RSPB Hope Farm in Knapwell I remember had been productive on their pre-lockdown open days a few years ago and I remembered they had a wild patch of setaside.
Purple Emperor showing yellow proboscis
Purple Hairstreak
Brassy Longhorn
The farm and reserve are not strictly open to the public at any time other than their open days, but it’s criss-crossed by public footpaths, so you can see some of the site if you’re discrete and don’t stray into the non-public areas. While there were plenty of Meadow Brown, Six-spot Burnet, Whites, and skippers on “wild” margins, unfortunately the wild area now has a crop and so any chance of a range of Lepidoptera beyond the obvious was not going to happen.
Marbled White
So, I hopped over to Overhall Grove, a small woodland not far from Hope Farm. It’s a bluebell wood in spring and also has the relatively Oxslip ( a hybrid flower formed by the fusion of cowslip and primrose). I was too late for those, of course, but I did bump into a couple – Nick & Stella Laughton – with cameras and scopes and binoculars who were staring at the top of an elm tree. Turns out the tree was host to White Letter Hairstreak butterfly. They were very friendly and full of ideas on where else I might see other butterflies, namely Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserve and the Newmarket “July Racecourse” end of our local Devil’s Dyke. They also mentioned I should check out the Cambs & Essex Butterfly Conservation page, where people post their sightings.
UPDATE: I bumped into Nick and Stella at Brampton Wood just after the Black Hairstreaks emerged in mid-June 2023.
Purple Emperor in flight
I took the trip to Woodwalton passing an antivivisection encampment on the way and ploughed on through to the Rothschild Bungalow. The oak trees on this site surrounding the bungalow are host to Purple Hairstreak (of which I saw at least a couple of dozen) and Purple Emperor (again maybe a dozen. One of the Purple Emperors had a perch high up in an oak on a prominent bough and would launch itself at any rival Emperors that flew too close. Indeed, it launched itself and saw off quite a few Emperor dragonflies too while I watched.
Burnet Companion at RSPB Hope Farm
Devils’ Dyke was for another morning, this time with Mrs Sciencebase. Stepping out, we spotted a pristine (presumably newly emerged) Painted Lady (not many around this year) and then a host of Chalk Hill Blues, dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds spanning a stretch of a couple of kilometres that we walked that morning. Also many dozens of Marbled White and an occasional Six-spot Burnet. Another couple spotted a Dingy Skipper, a species I’ve never wittingly seen, but we may have seen it that morning.
Painted Lady
The Pyramidal Orchids were prominent but the much less common Lizard Orchids were past their best and we didn’t see those in bloom.
Six-spot Burnet on Field Scabious
Another species that Stella and Neil had mentioned as being at Devil’s Dyke as well as the Chalkhills was hopefully going to be Dark Green Fritillary. We passed lots of other walkers who hadn’t seen any, but then before we know it, it’s noon and the Frits suddenly appear, perhaps half a dozen or so scattered along the Dyke and being chased by the Chalkhills.
Chalkhill Blue – Male (Left) and female “in copulo”
A second visit to Woodwalton earlier in the day when the Purple Emperors were likely to be feeding on or near the ground was productive and I got snaps of that activity as well as a few better shots of the Purple Hairstreak.
Dark Green Fritillary
So, having perhaps seen fewer than 30 species of butterfly in all my 50+ years, I suddenly “ticked” another five species in the space of a week – White Letter Hairstreak, Purple Hairstreak, Purple Emperors, Chalkhill Blue, Dark Green Fritillary. Earlier in the year I’d seen Green Hairstreak at Les King Wood and last year Silver-washed Fritillary and Clouded Yellow at Waresley Wood. I have to confess I’d seen SWF in Dorset and CY in Greece in 2019), but not seen them locally until 2020.
Some moths use pareidolia to scare away predators by flashing scary “eyes”, others disguise themselves as twigs, bark, lichen, moss. Some opt to look like leaves, yet others have more than a passing resemblance to flowers. Others spend a lowly life looking like bird droppings. This one, however, the Buff Arches, has evolved to resemble a chunk of flint lying on a woodland floor.
More moths on my Imaging Storm website just follow the “Mothematics” menu
TL:DR – One can attract clearwing moths to one’s garden with focused planting or with synthetic pheromones.
There is a beautiful group of moths known as clearwings that at first glance look rather waspish. Rather than having wings covered in scales like all of the other Lepidoptera (which roughly translates as scaly wings, or perhaps more strictly tiled wings), their wings a transparent, but for the supportive struts.
Red-belted Clearwing
These are generally day-flying moths and look like tiny shimmering jewels if you catch sight of one. The males are attracted to sex pheromones exuded by the female. As such, it is possible to draw them to a lure impregnated with the appropriate sex pheromone for each species. The moths that arrive at the lure can then be counted and ticked, perhaps even photographed in the name of (citizen) science.
Currant Clearwing
I purchased a set of pheromone lures from Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies ( a company that does exactly what it says in its name). I had previously used a lure for the Emperor moth with great success regular readers will recall. In the clearwing set there are lures for ten clearwing moth species. I began putting lures out individually on likely days – warm and breezy – back in May, but it is only into June that I’ve had success with the clearwings.
In early June, a Red-belted Clearwing was drawn to the target lure. By mid-June I was trying others and discovered that the lure for a different species, the Large Red-belted Clearwing drew in the smaller cousin – 14 of them, in fact! I put the lure out for the Hornet Moth next, no luck. Then, the Currant Clearwing, success this time. Then I tried the Orange-tipped Clearwing lure, and drew in not the target species but a Yellow-legged Clearwing. Later, I learned from an expert name of Anthony Wren, that those two lures are identical in composition and now I am musing on what that says about the evolutionary history of these two species.
Yellow-legged Clearwing
Clearly, the lures are not 100% on point when it comes to the species they attract. Now, ALS does list non-target species for each of its lures, so it is not entirely surprising. The reason is perhaps to do with the composition of the lures.
Red-tipped Clearwing
As I understand it, the lures each have the primary sex pheromone of the target female, but they also contain a mixture of other modified, volatile fatty acids and so on. This will lead to a degree of overlap in what the lure attracts because those other chemicals may well be interesting to other species of insect. It may not be about sexual attraction it could simply be that they are attractive or stimulating molecules. There does not seem to be a whole lot of clarity in the overall picture of what does what to each species yet, although there is a huge amount of excellent and ongoing research in this area.
Orange-tailed Clearwing
Orange-tailed Clearwing (Synanthedon andrenaeformis) with its golden hair pencil turned up (2 or 3) at about 10am to the SYN lure in the garden on 16th June 2021.
I have mentioned the biodiversity issues on one of our local fenland drains, known as the Cottenham Lode. Over the last couple of years several of us have seen Brassy Longhorn moths feeding on the Field Scabious that grows on the lode bank at the dogleg near the footbridge into the woodland at Rampton. There has been a problem with the time of the mowing of the Lode bank, which is done each year by the Environment Agency for flood risk reduction an important maintenance job, obviously.
Brassy Longhorn feeding on Field Scabious on the Cottenham Lode
The mowing is usually done in two stages a strip towards the top of the bank is mown fairly early in the summer and the lower strip and the upper strip are then mown completely towards the end of July. Unfortunately, that full cut takes with it all the field scabious flowers, which are still blooming and with it the insect life that had until that point been thriving on the flowers. It is a crying shame one might say, especially in an age when conservation and biodiversity are high on the agenda.
I have great news to report. I have been in discussions with the Environment Agency who have now agreed to defer the first cut of the lode bank until no earlier than the week commencing 16th August this year and a similar date for future years. This means that the second, full, which takes in all of the lower part where the field scabious grow will be later still.
This will hopefully give the insect life and the wildflowers a better chance before the blades fall on them each year. So thank you to Alex Malcolm and Neil Stuttle at the EA for listening to my argument and finding a solution.
Earlier in the year, I bought myself a summer of moths – a pack of pheromone lures with which to entice clearwing moths into the garden, with a view to grabbing a quick photo opportunity and letting them on their way to find a mate etc.
Regular readers will recall I have mentioned pheromone lures before in the context of the Emperor moth. The clearwings are a very different group and I’ve not had time to find out much detail about the chemistry of their pheromone attactants. Regardless, I have been putting out a lure, known as “myo” for the Red-belted Clearwing (,em>Synanthedon myopaeformis).
Usually, I hang the lure in the back garden and have had no luck, but on a whim, today I put it in the front garden and within about ten minutes, a RbCw turned up. The specimen was a lot smaller than I was anticipating, but checking in my “Collins”, I see that it is a rather small moth, with a wingspan of 19-24 mm. I’d say this one was on the lower end of that size scale. Beautiful creature, obviously belted and see-through wings. If you didn’t know, you might guess at it being some kind of wasp-type insect. But, definitely no sting in the tail of this one.
The species flies June to August but is rarely seen except by those with a pheromone lure for citizen science purposes. The larvae live under the bark of old apple, and other fruit trees such as pear and almond. Got the best snaps I could of this rather skittish specimen so I could let him back into the wild sooner, rather than later.
