Biology – Page 26 – David Bradley

Dark Crimson Underwing in VC29

I’d heard rumours of a new moth in town…I say town, I mean the countryside in and around the counties of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. It’s one with dark, but patterned forewings, and a crimson blush to its hind wings, which are often hidden from view when the moth is at rest. Not to be confused with the Red Underwing (which are “everywhere”), this is quite a rarity this far north (Cambridgeshire, Vice County 29, VC29)

The Dark Crimson Underwing, Catocala sponsa (Linnaeus, 1767), is usually found the southern-most county of mainland England, Hampshire and in the New Forest where it lays its eggs on the bark of old oak trees. But, it’s been heading northwards for a while and, like I say there were sightings in neighbouring counties to ours, Cambridgeshire and as it turns out in Cambridgeshire itself.

Crimson hindwings aside, pretty well camouflaged against a lich-encrusted barkI didn’t know about any Cambs sightings when one turned up to the 40-Watt actinic lure overnight on a sultry 11th August and roosted until morning among the cardboard egg cartons. I must add it arrived with 300+ other moths about 40 different species. But, the DCUW was the most splendid. I shared the sighting with an envious County Moth Recorder who is based a little further north in Ely and mentioned it in passing to a few other people, some were impressed others pointed out that they’d had one too in their mothing either last week or the week before.

One of the people I mentioned it to was C5 bassist Roger B. I was lamenting to him that in the absence of big game safari in the British Isles the birds and the Lepidoptera are the next best thing. He’s a bit of a fan of moths too and pointed out that I should perhaps have a more positive attitude to my hobbies. Everyone knows what an elephant looks like, he said, but not many people know what a Dark Crimson Underwing is. So, bonus points all round.

Macro closeup with tubes of the moth’s compound eye, such foreshortening of the depth of field that the eye is pretty much the only thing sharp in the photo

House Cricket in Cottenham

If you’ve spent even just one of the recent spate of sultry summer nights outside, you may, if you closed your eyes briefly, be forgiven for imagining that the village had been lifted wholesale and transported to a balmy beach resort, a little farther than Bournemouth and certainly not northwards to Barnard Castle, say somewhere on The Mediterranean coast. But, it’s not so much about the heat and humidity that has led to perspiring gents and glowing local ladies, rather it’s the sound.

Have you heard it? The chirping, chirruping as the dusk settles and the night draws on? The sound seems to bounce from garden to garden as one perambulates the pavement. It’s as if someone is playing a trick on you, first it’s to your left at number 12, then it’ over the road at number 15 and back to 11 and, bizarrely, no, it’s definitely coming from number 18…probably the back garden.

The sound is quite evocative, it’s the sweet monotonically melodic note of the House Cricket, Acheta domesticus. Specifically, it’s the sound of the male of the species rubbing his wings together (termed stridulation) to make a sound to attract a female. It’s a mating call, in other words.

The House Cricket species is thought to be native to Southwest Asia and has been kept as a pet in China and Japan and probably elsewhere for centuries simply for the charming evocation of its chirping. After World War II, the species began its inextricable worldwide spread carried on the waves of human globalization that broke on international shores in the second half of the twentieth century. Today, it might be found almost anywhere and certainly when there is a run of days that top out somewhere above 30 Celsius and the nights don’t chill to below about 20 Celsius, we hear them in Cottenham.

Dry-roasted house cricket is a great source of high-quality protein and could be the future once we accept that the carbon footprints left by mammalian livestock are far too big for our boots. Indeed, as with all insects the animal provides a complete protein, in other words it contains all nine of the essential amino acids we need in our diets. Unfortunately, there has been a viral pandemic in the cricket world, cricket paralysis virus has devastated the cricket-breeding industries of North America and Europe. Thankfully, the industry discovered that the Jamaican field cricket is resistant to this virus and has usurped the house cricket as the invertebrate of choice in the industry.

Unfortunately, I am yet to get a photograph of one of the Cottenham house crickets, but I have made a recording of the sound for your delectation, in case you have not had the opportunity to sit a spell in the rocker on your porch on one of these summer nights. It’s worth noting that the faster the chirps, the warmer it is…or vice versa…when it gets warmer the crickets stridulate faster.

The “Green Fairy” moth – The Wormwood

If you’ve been with me on Instagram for a while, you might be thinking, oh I know this one, he posted the quiffy little beggar a few weeks ago.

Well, you’re close, but no cigar, the previous lepidopteral quiffmeister was The Shark, this is the closely related Wormwood, Cucullia absinthii.

As its name would suggest its larvae feed on wormwood (and mugwort) and the adults have evolved to resemble the seedhead of that type of plant. You’ll notice the “absinthii” of its scientific binomial, which refers to the wormwood plants scientific name Artemisia absinthium, which is used to make the Green Fairy drink, absinthe.

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The Gypsy Destroyer of Trees

The Gypsy Moth Lymantria dispar (Linnaeus, 1758) is perhaps the archetypal moth, browns and greys enormous protuberant antennae in the male, lots of high-frequency flapping, and definitely drawn to a candle…or in this instance, an ultraviolet, actinic lamp.

Gyspy Moth in flight, shutterspeed 1/8192th of a second

I remember seeing images of this creature in nature and science books when I was a child along with the caterpillar (larva) of the Puss Moth, the one that looks like it’s got a face painted on its rear end. I also remember being quite perturbed seeing images of such creatures close up, something about their seemingly alien nature when compared to the more usual faces of mammals and fish even that you see in children’s nature books.

The Gypsy Moth was common in 19th century in the East Anglian and Southern Fens, but was extinct as a breeding insect by the turn of the century. It remains a major pest of deciduous trees in mainland Europe and elsewhere and there are now colonies in London and southern England. The family name, Lymantria, means tree destroyer.

It is impossible to know whether this male specimen drawn in by my actinic lamp is a vagrant from the mainland carried in ahead of a forecast heatwave from the South East or whether it is part of a local population. The females are a lot bigger and not so agile on the wing. Intriguingly, the miniscule larvae are dispersed on the wind like seeds.

In North America, there is a call to rename the Gypsy Moth to have a less socially sensitive name. The suggestion is that it should be referred to by an English version of its French name, the Spongieuse, which alludes to the spongy mass of eggs laid by the females, so the Spongy Moth.

How to identify British Moths

Sean Foote is a marvel. Over on Twitter he responds to tagged tweets from people who have photographed a UK moth or two and would like to know what species of moth they have. I’ve used his services on numerous occasions often to confirm an identification, but more often when I simply didn’t have a clue as a relative n00B moth-er. It’s an entirely free service although users can “buy him a coffee” here as a mark of appreciation.

He keeps records, as you would, and publishes details of the most requested identifications, he’s also got a nice Top 100 with tips on how to identify some of the more ambiguous Lepidoptera. I’ve compiled a list of the Top 40 here. Don’t forget to leave a tip for him if you find them useful.

1. Square-spot Rustic. 393 queries
2. Common Rustic agg. 292 queries
3. Uncertain/Rustic. 279 queries
4. Large Yellow Underwing. 270 queries
5. Double-striped Pug. 258 queries.
6. Common Pug. 254 queries
7. Marbled Minor agg. 251 queries
8. Willow Beauty. 247 queries
9. Common Marbled Carpet. 213 queries
10. Flounced Rustic. 185 queries
11. Bee Moth. 180 queries
12. Dark Arches. 178 queries
13. Turnip. 168 queries
14. Chrysoteuchia culmella. 167 queries
15. Light Brown Apple Moth. 166 queries
16. Mottled Rustic. 157 queries
17. Celypha lacunana.Â 154 queries
18. Riband Wave. 150 queries
19. Eudonia lacustrata. 149 queries
20. Clouded Drab. 148 queries
21. Vine’s Rustic. 147 queries
22. Small Dusty Wave. 136 queries
23. Cnephasia sp. 134 queries
24. Rustic Shoulder-knot. 132 queries
25. Pale Mottled Willow. 127 queries
26. Smoky Wainscot. 124 queries
27. Clay. 124 queries
28. Lesser Yellow Underwing. 120 queries
29. Ingrailed Clay. 119 queries
30. Common Plume. 113 queries
31. Yellow Shell. 107 queries
32. Shuttle-shaped Dart. 106 queries
33. November Moth sp. 105 queries
34. Common Quaker. 103 queries
35. Cabbage Moth. 102 queries
36. Dusky Brocade. 98 queries
37. Brindled Pug. 98 queries
38. Scoparia ambigualis. 96 queries
39. The Nutmeg. 95 queries
40. Cloaked Minor. 94 queries

Hunstanton Fulmars

Recently, I mentioned the presence of an intriguing seabird spotted flying over our very land-locked Cambridgeshire village – the Northern Fulmar, Fulmarus glacialis. The nearest flock of nesting Fulmar is on the layered cliffs that back the North beach at Sunny Hunny, Hunstanton on the North Norfolk coast looking out across The Wash and beyond to St Botolph’s in in the Lincolnshire town of Boston.

Fulmars sit in the Petrels and Shearwaters group of birds, the Procellariiformes meaning the tubenoses. So-called because along the crest of their bill they have a tubular structure that encloses one or two nostrils. They might be confused with gulls but a closer view reveals them to be rather different and even at a distance their stiff-winged flight is a giveaway.

Sandwich Tern taking a dive at Hunstanton, one of dozens

Lots of Swifts over the cliffs, making flying pecks at the limestone

Wreck of the trawler The Sheraton (launched 1907) at Hunstanton…the vessel was a WWII patrol vessel, ultimately wrecked in 1947.

Fruit of The Tall Sock Destroyer

This unassuming plant, flowers and fruit in the photo, which just happens to be growing locally along the edge of a sugarbeet field, is actually an endangered species on the “red” list…it’s a type of wild carrot that goes by the scientific name of Torilis arvensis, but you can call it The Tall Sock Destroyer*

*It’s also known as Spreading Hedgeparsley, which sounds more like a skin disorder people who run through amber fields of grain might get rather than the worst-ever Marvel comic superhero…

Its fruits have sticky little purple barbs that under normal circumstances cling on to the wool of passing sheep and the fur of other animals and spread the seed wherever those animals might graze. In times of herbicide use and less brazen shepherding, the plant has not thrived and is very much endangered, so it’s lovely to know that it’s growing on the outskirts of our fen edge village in Cambridgeshire. NB This is only the second time I’ve “twitched” a plant.

Spreading Hedgeparsley, The Tall Sock Destroyer

There’s a growing list of wildflowers classed as endangered in The British Isles, among them Apparently, Spreading Hedge-parsley, also known as the Tall Sock Destroyer. A friend of mine, Pam, spotted some growing along a sugarbeet field margin on the north edge of our village. I had to “twitch” it, it seemed so exotic.

It’s a delicate-looking plant of the carrot family, I was not particularly worried about ruining my socks even if that vernacular name sounds like its the worse of the DC/Marvel superheroes. Identification has now been confirmed by the county recorder here in VC29. So, here’s one of my snapshots of Torilis arvensis.

Let’s hope its presence in our village persists. It’s a good sign if we are seeing endangered species growing again, it could be their comeback. It would be interesting to know whether this is a positive effect on the environment of reduced traffic and human activity because of the Covid-19 lockdown. Who knows? And, after we ease lockdown will things revert to their problematic pre-pandemic condition?

Torilis arvensis fruit bodies – Photo by Pamela Newman

The bristly seed-bearing fruits have slightly curved bristles which presumably readily stick to the wool of grazing sheep and the wool of hikers’ socks. Its decline is mostly blamed on agricultural herbicides but the lack of grazing sheep on intensively farmed arable land in modern agriculture may also be to blame for the seed not to be spread as widely as it once was.

Torilis arvensis flowers – Photo by Pamela Newman

Silver-washed Fritillary butterfly

We visited Somerset in the summer of 2019 despite neither of us being fans of cider. We stayed on a beautiful part of the county’s north coast and did a lot of walking and visited a few nature reserves in the hope of seeing bird and insect species we might not commonly see in Cambridge where we live.

The Silver-washed Fritillary, Argynnis paphia, was one of the Lepidoptera I hoped to photograph. The species is widespread over the South West and Ireland (see here) and we saw several on flowers in the gardens of a cafe we visited after a five-mile walk. Spotted them only after I’d taken off my walking boots to cool my feet, so I was painfully tiptoeing over their gravel walkways to get a close-up.

Turns out the butterfly’s range extends all the way up to Cambridge, so we needn’t have gone that far if “ticking” that one species had been the sole aim of the trip. Yoga buddy Celia sent me a photo of paphia she had snapped in Hayley Wood Nature Reserve just west of Cambridge earlier this week.

So, on Friday I drove the 13 or so miles to this Wildlife Trust reserve with the aim of getting some new snaps of the species. I tramped up and down its empty footpaths for two or three hours. I passed one other person, a jogger, the whole time I was walking and then saw a Dad with his two teenage kids when I was at the top of the reserve’s observation tower.

Silver-washed Fritillary (M), rearview showing underside of wing

Anyway, I had seen very few birds, various butterflies (Comma, Meadow Brown, Peacock Red Admiral, Ringlet, Skipper, White (Large and Small) and having sat at the top of that tower was packing up my camera kit and readying to head home when I spotted a Hummingbird Hawk-moth flitting about among the fallen branches at the foot of the tower. This is the first one I’ve seen in this country since two of them were feeding on our Red Valerian in our back garden last September. Anyway, camera out, again…moth photographed.

Heading back to the car I took a 90-degree detour up a narrow and somewhat narrow footpath, which is when I spotted the first paphia of the day…and then another. They were too quick for me to raise my camera and get a shot, disappearing as they did into the overgrown foliage. I doubled back, maybe it’s a favoured spot, I thought…and thankfully it was indeed, another appeared, perched on a leaf, happy to be photographed at the requisite three metres of my 600mm zoom. Then another two.

Unless the butterflies had also doubled back, I hazard a guess that I saw five in this spot within the space of twenty minutes. I only ever saw two simultaneously, so it is possible there were actually between two and five.

The silver-washed fritillary butterfly has black spots on deep orange wings, and can be about 50 to 70 millimetres across when wings full open. The males are a little smaller and paler than the females. The name is derived from the character of the underside of the wing which is green with “artistic wash” silver streaks instead of the silver spots seen on other fritillaries. The adults feed on the nectar of bramble, thistles, and knapweeds, all of which were present lining the footpath.

Lots of Blackcaps and Wrens calling in the woods, but didn’t see much avian activity until I got back to the car, Whitethroat and a Red Kite overhead, quite low.

Lepidopteral Garden Safari – Part 96vii/d

Obviously, it’s not really Part 96vii/d (that’s just one of my perennial jokes). I think it’s probably the thirtieth or so post of moth garden safaris though…these are some of the varied species that made an appearance in the garden last night, drawn to the ultraviolet lure. My garden list is almost at 350 different species, there are some 1800 species in the British Isles overall, so still a long way to go and some species will never been seen in this little corner of England.