The height of summer – Marbled White

It doesn’t seem like five minutes that I was itching to get started photographing the summer migrant bird species. But, it was April that I saw my first Swallow of 2019, House Martins, had been around a few days at that point, and the Swifts came quite a bit later.

I went looking for the local Turtle Doves today, which were still turring last weekend somewhere in the trees along the recently opened bridleway between Fen Bridge Farm and the Les King Wood, in Cottenham, VC29. I didn’t hear nor see them this time. Maybe they’ve already started their journey back to southern Africa, the Cuckoos are long gone, after all, although Reed Warblers are still chattering in the Balancing Pond and along Cottenham Lode.

The Swallows on the barn at Broad Lane seem to be gathering together on the overhead wires, lots of youngsters perhaps wondering why. There were about fifty on one wire and a dozen or so on the barn roof. Will they soon be gone? It’s only mid-July and the Painted Ladies forecast a hot, dry summer to come and abundance of their thistle-eating caterpillars (#AllotmentLife). Indeed, the Swallows were still here at the end of August 2018, but it was an exceptionally hot and dry summer that seemed to start in May and carry on through to September with little respite. Who knows? When they’re gone, they’re gone.

I mentioned the so-called June Gap in butterfly activity between Spring and Summer. It’s a bit of #DeceivedWisdom really, there is such huge overlap between species we usually consider to be Spring species and those of the height of Summer that generally emerge in July. Today, I saw lots of Skippers (Large and Small), Whites, (Small and Large) Small Tortoiseshell (no Large), Painted Lady, Peacock, Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Gatekeeper, and new to my photo gallery Marbled White (Melanargia galathea, Linnaeus, 1758). UPDATE: June 2022 – I’ve seen a lot of Marbled Whites in various places since I first ticked the species and photographed it for Sciencebase, even added it to the garden list in June 2022.

It’s been a while since I mentioned #PondLife. There doesn’t seem to have been any repercussions of last week’s tapwater overkill, overspill. The water is still lovely and clear, the snails seem to be thriving and today I saw a pair of Ruddy Darter dragonflies mating on the wing over and around the water as well as at least one Common Blue damselfly (again). It is becoming a little bit of what I hoped for.

Lock up your boxes – there are invaders

The Box-tree Moth (Cydalima perspectalis, Walker, 1859) is an invasive species that has reached the British Isles. It originated in Asia and its larvae feed on, as the name would suggest, various species of Buxus, box tree (known as boxwood in the US). It turned up in my scientific trap night of 11th July 2019. I almost missed logging it as it flew up to a window as I was opening the trap. I’ve sent a record to the Cambridgeshire County Record.*

Box-tree Moth (Cydalima perspectalis)
Box-tree Moth (Cydalima perspectalis)

It’s a pretty pearlescent moth and was first seen in Europe in 2006, in Germany, specifically. It is most likely to have hitched a ride on imported Boxus plants as eggs or larvae. It was first recorded in the British Isles in Kent in 2007, spread to Surrey, into London and the home counties and beyond. It is not known which counties it is now resident in, but there have been sighting, often to moth traps, across most of Southern England and further North. It has been recorded in Fife in Scotland. Spotted in Toronto, Canada in 2019.

The larvae will devour Buxus leaves and so disfigure ornamental and topiaried Buxus. Of course, it is the importing of particular species of these plants that has allowed this moth to spread, reinforcing the mantra that planting native species should be the ethical horticulturalists way forward.

* Bill Mansfield the County Moth Recorder got back to me this morning with a response to the Box-tree Moth sighting:

Box tree is pretty well established in Cambridge city from Trumpington to North Cambs so no surprise you've got it too. I dread it arriving in Ely, if it's not already here. I've 20-metre of box hedge I've nurtured for eight years against everyone's best advice...

More and more moths

Amateur Lepidoptera expert friend Leonard has not “ticked” one of the species that were new to me in last night’s scientific trap experiment. The species in question looks quite remarkable: Marbled Clover, Marbled Clover (Heliothis viriplaca). So, that’s bonus points to me today, surely?

In fact, a day later, it seems that quite a few of the experienced moth-ers on the Facebook group there have not seen this species. It usually inhabits The Brecks, but there is evidence that there are migrants. We’re not that far from The Brecks here, but this could well be a traveller that just turned up almost randomly here.

Marbled Clover
Marbled Clover

Overall the haul for the night of 10th July 2019 and into the morning was more than 210 specimens of more than 56 moth species. There was a lot also among the folds of the white sheet I have hanging by the trap.

The Herald
The Herald

It would be interesting to know whether the sheet really makes a difference, as there are several species that don’t seem to enter the trap often that I have seen in the dark close to the trap (the large, lemon sherbert coloured Swallow-tailed moth, for instance), but are attracted by the ultraviolet let, and simply hang around the folds of the sheet. But they might just as easily roost on the brickwork and glass of the conservatory, in fact some do. Old Lady has appeared in the trap twice now (different specimens) and they’re not really even meant to be attracted to light.

Bordered Sallow
Bordered Sallow

I also wonder if all my wildflower planting and cultivating night-scented plants (Nicotiana, Stock) in the garden is making a difference, attracting moths by scent that are then drawn to the UV. I only started this experiment at the end of July 2018, so it is impossible to know, and the weather was very different in the summer of 2018, so there’d be no comparison even if I had started earlier and kept detailed records then.

Lozotaeniodes formosana
Lozotaeniodes formosana

Either way, I’ve just passed 250 species identified and photographed. This, I’d say is the half-way mark, given that two other moth-ers in the village here are both at the 500 mark after several years of scientific trapping.

Common White Wave
Common White Wave

If you want to follow the detailed logging of the experiment, my spreadsheet is available here.

The Coronet
The Coronet

All of the photos on this blog post are of species new to me on the day or writing. 11th July 2019.

Rhyacionia pinicolana
Rhyacionia pinicolana

Macro Safari

Usually, I carry a “blimey, that’s a big one” lens the size of which passersby seem to have no reservations in commenting on. It does have a focal length of 600mm, but it’s tiny compared to some of the fast professional sports and wildlife prime lenses of similar focal length out there.

Anyway, today I took a tiny lens. A 90mm prime, macro 1:1, lens. It means you have to get closer to the subject to get the shot, which means it’s no good for photographing birds perched, flying, or otherwise, except if you’re somehow in a hide or otherwise well hidden. But, I wanted to capture a few of the mini beasts in the countryside around us: A few micro moths maybe, the butterflies fluttering by, hoverflies, May flies, beetles etc.

And, I did. I revisited the Field Scabious on the banks of the Cottenham Lode and sat down with metallica (the Brassy Long-horn moth, Nemophora metallica), snapped some Skippers, some Common Red Soldier Beetles (Ragonycha fulva), and a couple of Swollen-thighed Beetles (Oedemera nobilis).

Hoverflies
Hoverflies
Large Skipper butterfly
Large Skipper butterfly
The green insect is Swollen-thighed Flower Beetle
The green insect is Swollen-thighed Flower Beetle
Battered Speckled Wood butterfly
Battered Speckled Wood butterfly
Brassy Long-horns
Brassy Long-horns
Brassy Long-horn closeup, lens was about 120mm away, this is cropped though, moth is 10mm
Mayflies
Mayflies

Citizen Science Moth-trapping

In case you hadn’t noticed, Sciencebase is now moth central, at least for the time being. I’ve been using a scientific trap with a 40W actinic UV light for almost a year now. Have identified (often with help) and photographed almost 250 different species of moth. That’s a mere 10 per cent of the number of species seen in the British Isles. Some rarities have been seen beyond the trappings of our back garden too, including the Brassy Long-horn, logged with the County Recorder and back in the trap, Light Feathered Rustic.

Meal Moth, Pyralis farinalis
Meal Moth, Pyralis farinalis – Rare migrant or grain-store dweller

Anyway, this morning’s haul was quite vast. Biggest count ever – 200+ moths of 50+ species (not counting a few stray micro moths). I managed to ID all but one of them. The spare one isn’t in my Collins guide to Lepidoptera. It’s a micro moth known as a Meal Moth, Meal Moth (Pyralis farinalis).

Buff Arches
Buff Arches – The moth with a hint of flint

The Meal Moth is not normally interested in lights and usually spends its time in buildings (what it did before buildings I don’t know…caves…woodland hollows, presumably). Its larvae eat stored grain, so the kinds of buildings it prefers are grain stores and barns. Now, we’re not too far from farmland and some of the local crops are wheat and barley, but there are no grain stores close to us. It might be that this species, rather than being a dingy building dweller is something of a scarce migrant. Neil Croton on one of the mothing Facebook groups ID’ed it for me and told me he’d had the same species last night too:

It's a lovely-looking moth, deserves to be a rare migrant rather than an overlooked moth of old farm buildings

I sent a record to Bill Mansfield the County Moth Recorder for Cambridgeshire (VC29). He told me that the Meal Moth turns up consistently and he had noted a recent mention on social media for Cambridgeshire.

Chinese Character – The piece of poo moth
The Spectacle – The moth with the glasses on
Buff-tip – The sticky moth
The Phoenix
The Phoenix – The rising from the ashes moth
Marbled Beauty
Marbled Beauty – The beautiful and marbled moth

Thrash metal moth – Nemophora metallica

UPDATE: June 2021 – I have recently negotiated with the UK Environment Agency to reschedule the mowing of the Lode banks on which this moth has been thriving these last two or three years – Saving Lode Life.

A gentle tale of heavy metal insects…a summer walk along the flood-bank of Cottenham Lode, usually with a camera, often turns up an interesting bird or two, Reed Warblers, Skylarks, Reed and Corn Buntings, and their cousins the Yellowhammers. There are often Linnets and various raptors and herons.


Earlier this week, I was chasing butterflies – Meadow Brown, Skipper, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, etc. A rather mundane and almost throwaway snapshot of a Green-veined White perched on the Field Scabious on the bank of the dog-leg in the lode where it deviates towards Rampton Bridge turned up something interesting. I thought I’d spotted a hoverfly, but when I looked at the photo closeup, it turned out to be a moth with very long antennae.

I tweeted the photo @MothIDUK who could only pin it down to one of various Nemophora species. It wasn’t his fault, the overblown reflections of the moth’s forewings hid any detail. However, Ian Ellis, a fellow moth-er in Cottenham, saw my tweet and went to the Lode himself to check out this day-flying moth. He saw eight longhorns and reckons the one in my photo is Nemophora metallica. A great moth name for heavy metal fans, one has to admit.

I took another trip to the dog-leg in the Lode and photographed the species again, this time deliberately and with a tripod so I could get some fairly sharp photos where I was homing in on the moth rather than random butterflies. Amazing creature, the male’s antennae are about three times the length of its body, although its body is just 8 or 9 millimetres long, but…still!

In my photos, the moth is feeding on its target plant, the field scabious, Knautia arvensis. They’re known in East Anglia, but relatively rare and this could be a useful record for Cambridgeshire, VC29.

Buff-tip – the sticky moth

Any moth-er will tell you, a lot of moths are shit…that’s not to say they don’t like them, rather lots of moths have evolved to resemble bird droppings. Among those that have camouflaged themselves as guano are the wondrous Chinese Character, the Lime-speck Pug, the Least Carpet and the Garden Carpet, and several others. They are unaware of their superficial resemblance to a dollop of tacky avian ordure. Anyway, it’s what’s on the inside that matters and moths have feelings too…sort of.

Other moths have a grander perspective on camouflage, Buff Arches, as previously mentioned looks like a chunk of knapped flint and so can hide among the stones on the woodland floor with predators unaware of its presence.

But, today I want to talk about a sticky moth. I don’t mean the species has adhesive qualities, although if you let it walk on to your finger you can feel it clinging on to your skin. No, the moth we know as the Buff-tip looks like a piece of broken twig. A twig from a birch tree to be precise. Unfortunately, the best twig I found was from our wisteria, so he had to make do. In my first photo, it is difficult to see where moth and twig begin and end. Is that twiglet the alpha to the moth’s omega or its yang to its yin? You decide.

In this photo, the moth was still clinging to its twig, almost for dear life, and in my photo it’s more obvious which is which, but…are you sure, you’re seeing it the right way?

The Old Lady with the Black Underwing and the Grave Brocade

As the summer moves on, so the diversity and numbers of moths (Lepidoptera) active each night grows. We’re coming to the end of the first week of July and already one night’s haul has passed 200 specimens of 40 different species, logged, identified, and the interesting and ones new to the garden photographed.

Old Lady moth. Mormo maura
Old Lady moth. Mormo maura, one of the larger moths of the British Isles

160+ moths of more than 30 species were drawn to the actinic light of the scientific moth trap on the night of 5th July. I had heard and possibly seen an Old Lady (Mormo maura) in the garden a few nights ago, but this morning she was nestled in one of the egg trays in the trap awaiting her photocall. This species is large (30mm along the edge of the forewing). Far bigger than the many micros that I didn’t log in detail. You can see the morning logs for the leps here.

The Old Lady, also known as a Black Underwing, and in an earlier time, the Grave Brocade, was accompanied by two Privet Hawk-moths (the UK’s largest species of moth) and a single Elephant Hawk-moth both of which I’ve photographed and written about here previously. The Old Lady is not commonly drawn to light according to the UK Moths site, although my Collins lep guide says they will often come indoors attracted by the light. Regardless, this one definitely was drawn to the light and settled in for the night. It had a chunk missing from its left forewing, so I did a little ‘shopping to tidy her up.

Why is this noctuid, or owlet, moth, called Old Lady, you are probably asking? Well, the sombre answer is that the dark and funereal colours of this moth reminded those who named it of the penchant of elderly widows of Europe for wearing black. This was long before the Victorian era though.

The delicate patterning of the moth’s wings, according to Peter Marren in his book of moth names, Emperors, Admirals, and Chimney Sweepers, resembles that kind of black lace. Intriguingly, adds Marren, the scientific name – Mormo maura – The first part of the name is the name of a hideous she-monster used by Greek parents, apparently, to encourage errant children to behave. “Mormo will come and bite you, if you don’t behave! The second part of the name alludes to the Moors. In Holland, the Old Lady, Marren tells us, becomes a black orphan – Zwart weeskind.

Pondlife clarity

Our pond has, this week, started to show signs of clarity, we can see the gravel at the bottom now and although it’s not perfectly clear it seems to have achieved some kind of balance at last. That said, it occurred to me after writing the initial draft of this blog post that the thing that did it was transplanting one of the plants into a bigger pot of aquatic soil; that was about a week ago. The low-nutrient aquatic soil has presumably added something to the water or is acting as a filter and led to this new clarification. Of course, what this now means is I need to find a way to camouflage the tubs and the hose you can now see at the bottom of the pond!

There have been sporadic sightings of at least a couple of frogs for a few weeks now. I added some water snails from a friend’s as previously mentioned, and I could actually see them moving around in the newly clear water. I also added a couple more plants including the mimulus in the photo above, maybe that helped with the clarification too.

Damselflies have been investigating again today…which is good…and there is an abundance of mosquito larvae…not so nice.

The June Gap

UPDATE: Reading Oates, I realise now that the June Gap is more widely appreciated, particularly by beekeepers rather than butterfliers. Indeed, the gap isn’t really about the invertebrates at all, it’s about the flowers. The spring flowers come and go and there is commonly a gap between their final blooms and the emergence of summer flowers.

It is this period that beekeepers think of as The June Gap, a period when there is far less nectar available for their apian charges. This, of course,  means there is less food for other nectaring species, such as butterflies, and so they have adapted to cope with this in terms of their flight periods and reproductive cycles, hence the hibernators, the spring emergers, and the summer species.

However, climate change and change ecosystems now mean that much is altered from when the notion of a June Gap was first discussed and indeed, the very notions of the immutable four seasons in the temperate zones are being disturbed by global effects driven by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

There always seems to have been some overlap between what we might call the spring butterflies (Orange Tips, Brimstone, Peacocks etc) and the emergence of the summer species, like this Ringlet, the Heaths, the Blues, and the Meadow Browns, Skippers etc. But some of those Spring species keep going well into the summer and some of them have a second brood too.

Ringlet butterfly, with swollen-thighed beetle bottom left
Female Ringlet butterfly, with swollen-thighed beetle bottom left
Comma (left), Ringlet (right)
Comma (left), Ringlet (right)
Large Skipper
Large Skipper

So, while there may have been a June Gap in flowers (that too is changing), insects and plant life don’t tend to obey our qualitative rules. Indeed, many years there are commonly more butterflies and more butterfly species on the wing in June than in the earlier spring months or later in the summer.

For more of my butterfly photos, check out the Lepidoptera galleries on my Imaging Storm website.