Natural Highlights of 2020

UPDATE: The news kept getting better and while things are not quite back to normal and never will be, all of those involved are in a much better place than they were at the beginning of October.

It has been a traumatic week an emotional rollercoaster to coin a cliche, you might say. There is a more positive outlook this week than there was this time last week, so I am now doing a little bit of a celebration of life with some of the interesting and intriguing species Mrs Sciencebase and I have seen this year on our rather lockdown-limited excursions.

Short-eared Owl, NT Burwell Fen – January 2020
Pipistrelle Bat day-flying along the edge of Rampton Spinney, February 2020

Female Goosander on The River Tyne near Ryton, March 2020

Emperor Moth, Cottenham – April 2020
Longhorn Moths, Rampton Spinney – April 2020
Wren, Cottenham – April 2020
Kingfisher, Wilburton – April 2020
Common Frogs, Cottenham – May 2020
Mimulus, Cottenham – May 2020
Figure of Eighty moth, Cottenham – May 2020
Curlew, Cley, Norfolk – May 2020
Red Kite, Snettisham – June 2020
Ringlet, Snettisham, Norfolk – June 2020
Brassy Longhorn, Cottenham Lode – June 2020
Corncockle, Cottenham – June 2020
Female Red-footed Falcon, RSPB Fen Drayton – June 2020
Pyramidal Orchid, Les King Wood, Cottenham – June 2020
Sandwich Tern, Hunstanton – July 2020
Fulmar, Hunstanton – July 2020
Spreading Hedge Parsley, Cottenham – July 2020
Silver-washed Fritillary, Hayley Woods, Cambridgeshire – July 2020
Rather blurry shot of a Clouded Yellow at Hayley Woods – August 2020
Bittern, RSPB Ouse Fen – August 2020
Hare, Cottenham Allotments – August 2020
Hobby, Wilburton – August 2020
Dark Crimson Underwing, Cottenham – August 2020
Osprey, Rutland Water – August 2020
Gypsy Moth, Cottenham – August 2020
Little Owl, Les King Wood, Cottenham – August 2020
Clifden Nonpareil, Cottenham – September 2020
Grounded Kestrel, Rampton Spinney – October 2020
First Merveille du Jour of the year - October 2020
First Merveille du Jour of the year – October 2020

Clifden Nonpareil, Catocala fraxini (Linnaeus, 1758)

Clifden Nonpareil – For the incomparable moth from Clivedon House, blue is the colour!

Blue is not a common colour in British moths

The UK Moths website described Catocala fraxini as the Victorian collector’s classic all-time favourite”. It also goes by the name of the Blue Underwing because of the shock of blue on the hindwings, which are usually covered by the forewings when the moth is at rest and are exposed when it reacts to a threat.

C fraxini feeds on aspen rather than ash (the frax of its name)

The moth was well known in the British Isles in Kent and Norfolk until the middle part of the the 20th century, the site explains, but it ultimately became extinct in terms of being a breeding resident on these shores and was seen only occasionally by lepidopterists as a vagrant immigrant from the continental mainland.

C.fraxini on an NCL rule for scale

Thankfully, the species has been gaining new traction in the South of England and in East Anglia. It is now thoughtto be recolonising and is almost certainly breeding in the south. As an amateur moth-er, I hoped to draw this species beyond compare to the actinic lure I light up some nights in our Cambridgeshire garden. I didn’t hold out much hope until I heard on the mothing grapevine that there had been one or two sighted in neighbouring counties.

Blue Underwing with my secondhand copy of Manley behind

Then, in the middle of August, a fellow moth-er at the other end of our village here, reported a sighting of a Clifden in his garden. At the time, the closest I came to the fabled Blue, was another Catocala species, the Dark Crimson Underwing, that came to the actinic lure (it’s just a UV lamp,  by the way). The Dark Crimson is usually confined to the New Forest, I was happy to see it.

A couple of weeks later my village friend reported a second Blue and his own NFG (new for the garden) Dark Crimson. I had my fingers crossed as tightly as they can be, but no luck. The autumn kicked, in then a mini-heatwave or two. There were endless Large Yellow Underwings (which are unrelated to the Catocala species, being Noctuidae rather than Eribidae. There were also lots of Lunar Underwings, yet another noctuid with veiny forewings and a moon-like crescent on each hindwing. Lots of Square-spot Rustics too and the Black Rustics of autumn. But no Blue.

Finally, on the night of 28th September at about 22h50, I let the dog into the garden for her late-night ablutions and checked the actinic lure, immediately spotting lots of craneflies on the adjacent wall, a Lunar Underwing on the box itself and…oh…there…an enormous speckled, patterned, grey moth with its shimmering band of blue on each hindwing exposed when the moth is disturbed. It truly is beyond compare, nonpareil.

This specimen was a little battered by the time it reached my lure. It is about 48 mm from palps to the tip of its folded forewings. The books describe it by wingspan which can be 80 to 90 mm. For a British species, it is truly enormous and impressive, not quite as big as our largest resident the Privet Hawk-moth which can be up to 120mm when its wings are fully expressed.

 

Knots taking off and knots landing

As winter encroaches (it’s mid-September and we’re in the middle of an Indian Summer here in East Anglia, ahem), the (Red) Knot, Calidris canutus, start to flock on The Wash and their tidal activity can be seen as the waves break repeatedly and these waders take to to the air in their thousands, if not tens of thousands.

We were treated to a wader wonder on 17th September 2020, at Snettisham Beach on the North Norfolk coast. Patiently we watched the tide rise and the birds feeding and occasionally flocking. At the point there was essentially no visible mud flat remaining, the birds flock and make like a murmuration of starlings, whirling and cavorting in a seemingly coordinated way. Sometimes they head further out to sea, but occasionally a flock will fly overhead and head for the lagoons behind us. It is quite incredible, the sight and the sound.

Difficult to time it just right. It has to be the perfect tide, the right conditions, and you have to be lucky to be there.

Snettisham Sunset’s fine

The new garden moths of 2020

With Covid-19 lockdown hitting some people very hard, it seems churlish to complain about its effects on me. It felt hard – no pub visits with friends, no limited time outdoors and so not much chance for nature photography and long walks with the dog, no rehearsing with C5 The Band nor the TyrannoChorus choir, no panto to plan for etc, like I say, relatively easy, but still hard.

Dark Crimson Underwing
Dark Crimson Underwing

As such, I was really hoping for an exciting moth year to keep me sane, and I have had some crackers, but numbers and diversity seem to have been low…all I’ve really seen for the last couple of weeks are quite a few Large Yellow Underwings and Square Spot Rustics and little else.. They’re of interest in their own right, of course, but once you’ve seen a few dozen, you’ve seen them all.

Gypsy Moth
Gypsy Moth

I am yet to see the so-called Blue Underwing, the Clifden Nonpareil, a beautiful and fascinating European species that seems to be spreading northwards (I hear they’ve been ticked in Shropshire now). It’s odd a fellow moth-er in this village had two of these a couple of weeks ago. I did see its relative the Dark Crimson Underwing a month before he did. That species is usually only seen in the New Forest but is also spreading its wings so to speak.

UPDATE: Clifden Nonpareil actually turned up at the end of September.

Clifden Nonpareil
Clifden Nonpareil
Figure of Eighty
Figure of Eighty

Anyway, without going into all the statistical detail of 250 or so species I’ve noted this year so far more than 30 of them were new for the garden (NFG), new to me (NTM), in fact, I’d not seen them live before. Where a name has “agg” that means aggregate and it is to mark those species that look superficially identical to others and cannot be separated into distinct species without dissection or DNA analysis.

Pine Hawk-moth
Pine Hawk-moth
  1. Agonopterix heracliana-ciliella agg
  2. Beauty, Brindled (Lycia hirtaria, Clerck, 1759)
  3. Bell, Two-coloured (Eucosma obumbratana, Lienig & Zeller, 1846)
  4. Brindle, Clouded (Apamea epomidion, Haworth, 1809)
  5. Campion, The (Sideridis rivularis, Fabricius, 1775)
  6. Case-bearer, Coast Green (Coleophora amethystinella, Ragonot, 1885)
  7. Clifden Nonopareil (Catocala fraxini, Linnaeus 1758)
  8. Emerald, Common (Hemithea aestivaria, Hübner, 1789)
  9. Figure of Eighty (Tethea ocularis, Linnaeus, 1767)
  10. Footman, Orange (Eilema sororcula, Hufnagel, 1766)
  11. Hawk-moth, Pine (Sphinx pinastri, Linnaeus, 1758)
  12. Highflyer, May (Hydriomena impluviata, Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775)
  13. Knot Grass (Acronicta rumicis, Linnaeus, 1758)
  14. Knot-horn, Twin-barred (Homoeosoma sinuella, Fabricius, 1794)
  15. Knot-horn, Warted (Acrobasis repandana, Fabricius, 1798)
  16. Lackey, The (Malacosoma neustria, Linnaeus, 1758)
  17. Lozotaenia forsterana (Fabricius, 1781)
  18. Marble, Diamond-back (Eudemis profundana, Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775)
  19. Nutmeg, The (Anarta trifolii)
  20. Oegoconia agg. (Haworth, 1828)
  21. Pearl, Lesser (Sitochroa verticalis, Linnaeus, 1758)
  22. Pearl, Rusty Dot (Udea ferrugalis, Hübner, 1796)
  23. Pearl, Straw-barred (Pyrausta despicata, Scopoli, 1763)
  24. Pseudoswammerdamia combinella
  25. Ptycholoma lecheana
  26. Rustic, Brown (Rusina ferruginea, Esper, 1785)
  27. Rustic, Clancy’s (Caradrina kadenii, Freyer, 1836)
  28. Shears, Tawny (Hadena perplexa, Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775)
  29. Straw, Scarce Bordered (Helicoverpa armigera, Hübner, 1808)
  30. Tortrix, Red-barred (Ditula angustiorana, Haworth, 1811)
  31. Underwing, Dark Crimson (Catocala sponsa, Linnaeus, 1767)
  32. Webber, Juniper (Dichomeris marginella, Fabricius, 1781)

Green Carpet moth

There is a whole group of moths called “carpets”. Despite (un)popular opinion about moths they do not eat carpets. Indeed, there are only one or two British moths (out of 11000 species!) that feed on wool and other textiles.

No, these moths are called carpets because when they were identified and scientifically named carpets were luxury items and the naturalists wanted to honour the beauty of these little creatures by naming them after something luxurious. This Green Carpet, Colostygia pectinataria, was drawn to the actinic light in our back garden last night and photographed this morning.

RSPB Ouse Fen

I’ve mentioned RSPB Ouse Fen a lot over the last few years, it’s a lovely quiet patch of flooded gravel pits, with some woodland, and reedbeds etc, not far from where we live. There are two ways to get to it, one is a lot closer and takes you into the reedbed side of the reserve, the far side is a longer drive and takes you through the more wooded areas. Both are nice, but I tend to favour the reedbed side.

Once bittern – Mrs Sciencebase’s first sighting, about 400m distant

We visited again today, quite a lot of avian activity: Cormorant, Great White Egret, Mute Swan, various ducks and other waterfowl, Snipe (6x), Marsh Harrier (3x), Kestrel (2x), Reed Bunting, Whitethroat, Reed Warbler, Blue Tit, Common Buzzard, Goldfinch (20x), Linnet (10x), Housemartins (24+) and various waders we could hear but didn’t see.

Great White Egret, about 400 metres distant, calling

Highlight for Mrs Sciencebase was her spotting a Bittern, this is the first time she’s ticked that particular heron, I believe, and was quite pleased to have finally seen one, having heard the males calling several times over the years at this and other places. As with that other heron, the egret, there are several obvious puns to be made, which I’ve done to death over the years. I have no egrets and remember once bittern…etc…

Meanwhile, it’s almost the end of August, temperature has been dropping, winds and rain picking up, and yet still seeing swallows, warblers, housemartins, and even an occasional swift that haven’t yet headed south for the winter. And, of course, there are still Osprey chicks at Rutland Water as I reported last week.

Moths for chemists #mothsmatter

cinnabar moth
Cinnabar – named for the red colour of the mineral mercury sulfide
Mother of Pearl - resembling the natural composite material nacre
Mother of Pearl – resembling the natural composite material nacre. There are lots of “pearls”
Silver Y - metallic and migratory
Silver Y – metallic and migratory
Brassy Longhorn - its wings have a metallic sheen
Brassy Longhorn – its wings have a metallic sheen
Burnished Brass - resembles a glistening chunk of scorched alloy
Burnished Brass – resembles a glistening chunk of scorched alloy
Iron Prominent - patina not unlike the colour and timbre of rusty metal
Iron Prominent – patina not unlike the colour and timbre of rusty metal
Copper Underwing - copper-coloured hindwings
Copper Underwing – copper-coloured hindwings
Brimstone - named for the alchemists' name for yellow sulfur
Brimstone – named for the alchemists’ name for yellow sulfur
Ruby Tiger
Ruby Tiger – tiger moth named for the red aluminium oxide gem
Green Silver-lines - obvious metallic lines
Green Silver-lines – Green moth with silver lines. There are other “silver” moths
Marbled Minor
Marbled Minor – Not quite a calcium carbonate moth. Lots of “marbles” and “marbled” moths
Light Emerald - another gem
Light Emerald – another gem, lots of “emeralds”
Gold Spot - a moth with spots of gold
Gold Spot – a moth with spots of gold
Gold Triangle
Gold Triangle – At rest, it adopts a triangular posture

The wildflower meadow myth

What could be more natural more evocative, more quintessentially English than a wildflower meadow nestled in the countryside, teeming with bees and butterflies, day-flying moths and countless other pollinators perhaps home to some ground-nesting birds and dozens of tiny mammals, a complete ecosystem when coupled with the natural reservoir in the neighbouring field?

And your wilding projects? Often the packs of seeds we scatter in our gardens to create a wild area or on roadside versions are cultivated mixes of cornflower, ox eye daisy, borage, (bizarrely) California poppy, and a few others. That said, I’ve tried to grow something more naturalistic by seeding corn cockle among the cornflowers, no ox eyes, but plenty of borage, viper’s bugloss, wild marjoram, opium poppies, yarrow, mallow, and the erroneously maligned ragwort.*

Well, sorry, but no. Not much of its not natural, it may be beautiful and conjure up images of a sadly lost past that never really existed, but many of what we call native wildflowers are anything but. Established wildflower meadows may well have taken hundreds of years to become established ecosystems. But, they arrived with humans who brought their agriculture from the Middle East in the stone age. Many of the species we consider essential to stocking a wildflower meadow are native to North Africa and the Mediterranean. They never grew here until the arrival of cultivated grassy food crops just a few millennia since.

Of course, many species in many different countries are not native, there have been so many changes to the climate and the geography and geology of the world over millions of years. What’s a few millennia between friends? Let’s cultivate the wildness anyway…

All of that said, it’s better to wild than to cultivate. Moreover, there is an argument that even if some of the so-called native wildflowers arrived with agriculture from the Middle East who’s to say that some of them weren’t growing here before the last ice age when the British mainland was conjoined to the European continent and the footprint of the landmass and the geography of the present Middle East were all very different?

*Ragwort: Erroneously maligned as a livestock and horse killer. Yes, it is toxic to cattle and horses and other animals and it’s sensible not to let it grow on pasture. However, it’s only a problem if the animals are not getting fed properly. It’s got a really bitter taste and most animals (Cinnabar moth larvae aside) will avoid it. However, it can end up in sileage when its bitterness might be masked by other plants in the mix and the animals quite happily tuck in and suffer.

The Rutland Water Ospreys

Rutland Water is a reservoir, an artificial lake in the English Midlands. Several years ago, they introduced Osprey chicks from Scotland in a conservation experiment to see whether this migratory raptor would breed in England again. The experiment was rather successful. You can read all the details on the Wildlife Trust’s site, save me repeating it here…

We’ve seen and photographed one of the Ospreys from the road that passes the reservoir having failed to see them from the northside reserve a couple of years ago. But on a visit in August 2020 we took to the hides on the southern shore…just as the rain came.

We saw four Ospreys coming and going, perching, flapping, feeding, flying, on the perches and on the nest. One adult delivered fish to a juvenile (the pair had three chicks this year, I believe and one of them has already headed south to Africa for the winter). We could even see one bathing on the opposite shore.

Unfortunately, taking photographs from 500 metres away through sheets of rain does not make for great wildlife photography. But, this is what I got, shooting with a Canon 7D mark ii fitted with a Sigma 150-600mm lens. All photos were developed in RAW Therapee and then processed and cropped in PaintShop Pro.

Also of note seen from the hides: Snipe, Green Sandpiper, Spotted Flycatcher, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Lapwing, Sedge Warbler, Stonechat, juvenile Common Tern, juvenile Blue Tit.