Science – Page 21 – David Bradley

A gateway guide to mothing

Other people’s hobbies are weird, aren’t they? Bird watching, trainspotting, stamp collecting…what’s that all about. But, some are particularly strange, at least until you find yourself introduced, intrigued, interested, and then heavily invested in that particular hobby.

Take mothing, it’s like birding, but with moths. What could be weirder? Many people think of moths as pests, dull grey and brown fluttery things that fly around lights at night and eating clothes and carpets. But, nothing could be farther from the truth. There are indeed some moths that are grey or brown and just two species whose larvae (caterpillars) eat textiles. However, there are about 2500 species in the UK alone and something like 150,000 species around the world and they come in all shapes and sizes, colours and patterns, many that outdo their lepidopteral cousins, the butterflies, for glamour and flamboyance.

Moth-er extraordinaire James Lowen who first went from intrigue to interest to investment when he first set eyes on the magnificent and enormous Poplar Hawk-moth has travelled far and wide to see some of those tens of thousands of species of moth. Now, in “British Moths – A gateway guide“, he reveals some of that intrigue and interest in the hope of enticing his reader into sharing his investment in the world of moths. And, what a world it is from the aforementioned Poplar Hawk-moth to the Angles Shades from the Emperor to Mother Shipton. The names are as diverse and distinctive as the shapes and patterns of this richly diverse group of insects.

In the pages of this handily spiral-bound book, Lowen introduces to what might be our first 350 or so ticks (as it were) on a novice moth-er’s list. Each described in crisp detail with an equally crisp photo. Labels highlight the highlights of each moth’s features, patterns on its wings, their antennae, even the males’ pheromone-releasing tail, its so-called hair pencil.

There is much to learn, but you will learn fast if you take a seasonal tour through Lowen’s lovely introduction to what some of us already see as the most fascinating of hobbies. Many of us see make use of our hobby as citizen scientists reporting sightings to the professionals and the county moth recorders and such.

Be warned though…your trainspotting and stamp-collecting friends will think you’re weird. Let them! Maybe even invest in a copy of Lowen’s book for them, intrigue them, interest them, get them invested in this fascinating hobby. Don’t let moths flutter by without taking a closer look.

Operation Pondlife

This is a bit of an update on a series of #PondLife articles I ran when I first resurrected our garden wildlife pond. Here’s how it looks right now. Very different from the nitryl-lined hole in the lawn back in April 2019. The original pond was twice the surface area, but I filled it in not long after we moved here, as we had very small children and it seemed too much of a risk.

Back in the day, we had a relatively large garden wildlife pond, lots of frogs lots of aquatic plants. But, we also had small children, back in the day, and with health and safety rather than nature conservation in mind, I filled in the pond, turfed over the patch and we had some good kickabouts for many a year with the children. The children are grown. It was time to resurrect the pond.

I dug out the old patch to about half the size of the original, created some terraced edges and the like, sharp side for the base, nitryl liner cut to size, filled it with water. I then chatted to village friends who had well-established ponds and acquired some plants – water soldier, flag irises, sedge, barred horsetail, reeds and the like. I even acquired some aquatic snails – the helical type and the spiral (ram’s horn) type. Three summer’s later and it’s well established.

I can usually count at least half a dozen, sometimes more, frogs on the edges of the pond after dark (Son has counted 9 one evening). We’ve had spawn two years running so far and seen tadpoles and then froglets. No newts yet, which is perhaps a saving grace for the frogs. Lots of dragonfly and damselfly larvae last season. Moreover, the garden birds use the pond for bathing and drinking. We even had a chiffchaff (the first in the garden) bathing several evenings on the trot during the warm spell back in April.

There is also an occasional heron that swoops in to take a frog. It’s a wildlife pond. It’s all part of nature’s way. Watching from a garden chair, tipple in hand on the annual balmy summer evening, it’s almost like being in a David Attenborough TV programme. And, speaking of which during the first lockdown, I occasionally did a live broadcast on social media from the pond.

There are plenty of online resources on “how to create a garden pond” with tips on how to make it work for local wildlife, including hedgehogs. A pond can be a simple affair, sunken watertight vessel, such as a Belfast sink or old metal bathtub, a lined dug-out patch like ours, or a bigger watering hole. Small scale it is relatively easy to do and will boost your eco-credentials in the eyes of the local wildlife. Well worth the effort. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for the arrival of the first wildebeest any day now…

Moths over models

What if famously mono, celebrity photographer David Bailey had opted for moths over models?

This is a Spruce Carpet, so-called because its larvae like spruce trees and its patterning reminded the 18th-century naturalists of the beautiful patterns of carpets (fairly novel and a grand status symbol at the time).

David Bailey is a well-known British photographer who gained fame in the 1960s for his iconic portraits of celebrities and models. He was born in 1938 in Leytonstone, London. He left school at the age of 15 and worked as a freelance photographer for various publications before being hired by British Vogue in 1960.

Bailey’s style was characterized by his use of high-contrast black and white photography and his ability to capture his subjects’ personalities in a candid and intimate way. His subjects included many of the most famous people of the era, such as The Beatles, Mick Jagger, The Kray Twins, Andy Warhol, and Catherine Deneuve.

In addition to his work for Vogue, Bailey also worked for other publications such as The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, and The Face. He also became known for his work in advertising, shooting campaigns for brands such as Burberry, Sony, and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Bailey’s personal life has been marked by a series of high-profile relationships. He was married to the actress Catherine Deneuve for a short time in the 1960s, and later married the model Marie Helvin. He has also been linked romantically to many other famous women, including Penelope Tree and Jean Shrimpton.

Throughout his career, Bailey has received numerous awards and honours for his work, including being made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE, in 2001. He continues to work as a photographer today and has also directed several films and documentaries.

Overall, David Bailey is considered one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, and his iconic images continue to be admired and emulated by photographers around the world.

Grasshopper Warbler, Locustella naevia

If you’ve never seen or more to the point heard a Common Grasshopper Warbler, Locustella naevia, then a visit to East Anglia right now might be merited. There are quite a few noted in our local countryside and on nature reserves (April 2022).

They’re summer-visiting migrants and will depart in August. The male’s song, isn’t so much a melody as a churring, turring, reeling tone reminiscent of the sound made by grasshoppers.

I was lucky enough to catch sight of one this morning and with a decent-sized zoom lens it didn’t mind me recording a snippet of video while it reeled. I used an audio editor to add a low cut (high-pass filter) and a high cut (low pass filter) that bracketed the bird’s sound to isolate it from the noise of the gravelworks, wind, and aeroplanes. You can see the spike that is the warbler’s reeling on the right of the image, the mound of noise on the left is rumbling works and wind.

Nearby where the street has a name…

Photographing butterflies

When the first Orange Tip of the garden year turned up just moments ago, I grabbed the nearest camera and rattled off a quick burst when it landed briefly on a wildflower (weed) in the garden. Pre-programmed settings on a Canon 7dii with a Sigma 150-600mm lens pulled to 600mm. 1/1600s, f/8.0, auto ISO jumped to 1600. No chance to do any bracketing or exposure compensation, before this male had flown. So, thank goodness for shooting in RAW.

RAW mode saves all the data your camera’s sensor detects. There’s no processing in the camera, you have to pull the RAW file into appropriate software and convert it to a format that you can then edit with a photo editor. In this case, I opened the native RAW importing component of PainShop Pro. This, like almost all other RAW software, lets you choose the exposure compensation after the fact so that blownout whites like one would get with an Orange Tip butterfly can be rescued.

So, as you can see in the above before and after shot, I’ve set exposure compensation (highlight recovery, they call it in this software) to “normal” and it’s rescued some of the blownout details of the white part of the butterfly’s wing. RAWTherapee, Lightroom, and other tools let you do more sophisticated imports of RAW files. And, you can rescue the blacks too and then create a pseudo-bracketed shot or even an HDR if you wish with some software.

Once some rescue work has been done, I’ll usually then apply a few different adjustments to levels, clarity, vibrancy, and sharpness, as well as cropping and adding my logo.

Ukraine’s National bird, the White Stork on our local patch

TL:DR – The national bird of Ukraine is the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia), we occasionally see them in the local fenland. Often they are ringed birds or birds that have escaped into the wild from collections.

I went looking for a White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) that had been seen at the marina in the nearby village Earith this morning. I was lucky enough to catch sight of it on the wing circling with numerous gulls and several Grey Herons before it headed upstream and out of sight along the Great River Ouse.

As many readers will know, the White Stork is the national bird of Ukraine, feels rather poignant to have seen one today. Birdwatcher Oleksandr Ruchko writing in The Guardian from Lviv had this to say on seeing the birds return to his homeland:

The stork is very sacred to Ukrainians, a symbol of spring, of babies, and of peace. They are believed to be a kind of amulet, and protect your house against evil. Nobody here ever kills storks to eat, not even in the worst times

The White Stork is widespread on the continent and a bird of fable and legend even to this day in the British Isles despite our having driven it to extinction in the middle ages. Last nesting pair was observed in Edinburgh in 1416. Today, there are a couple of dozen seen sporadically in the UK, some will have come from collections. The one I saw today was unringed but well have been released from a breeding program or other place. Equally, it may well have arrived from continental Europe…perhaps even Ukraine, itself, no way to know for certain.

Meanwhile, I also went back for another look at the Garganey and female Blue-winged Teal on the flood. I caught the Garganey in flight and was rather hoping that I’d inadvertently caught the female Blue-winged Teal in flight too. But, it his looks like a female Garganey chasing a drake Garganey. Funnily enough, the drake has quite a reputation having mated on several occasions over the last few weeks…with the female Blue-winged Teal. So maybe the female Garganey has taken umbrage…hah!

The Garganeys are thought to have headed north from Spain when it got too dry for them there early in the year. There have been lots of reported sightings of this bird in the UK in the last few weeks. The Blue-winged Teal dropped in not long after a Green-winged Teal had already been sighted. Those are both American birds that should really be heading south for Texas not Cambridgeshire, but presumably chose the wrong line of latitude when they set off from The Arctic earlier in the year.

After the garganeys, I spent some time watching Whitethroats, tried to get a photo of one of the Cetti’s Warblers, snapped a Sedge Warbler, and spotted my first Orange Tip butterfly of the year.

A scarce flower for Passover and Easter

We took a walk along the Devil’s Dyke hoping to see Green Hairstreaks and perhaps the Dotterals that had been sighted on neighbouring Ditch Farm. We had no luck with either of those, although there were lots of Brimstone butterflies, a few Whitethroats, and our first Willow Warbler of the year.

Almost in passing we noticed a pretty purple flower with a yellow centre. Mrs Sciencebase suggested it might be some kind of anemone and it is indeed in the same sub-family, Ranunculoideae, but it is specifically Pulsatilla vulgaris, known colloquially as the European Pasque Flower. Pasque from the Hebrew word for Passover, Pasakh. Obviously, quite apt for this time of year.

The plant is also known as the wind flower, prairie crocus, Easter flower, and meadow anemone. The showy purple parts are sepals rather than petal. It’s a scarce plant that likes chalky or limestone-rich land. Happily, the very substance of the raised earthworks that is Devil’s Dyke is a good proportion of chalk. It is also the ‘county flower’ of Cambridgeshire and neighbouring Hertfordshire. Pulsatilla species are toxic and can cause vomiting and diarrhoea if ingested and in serious cases of poisoning, convulsions, a critical drop in blood pressure, and coma.

Thanks to Twitter friends for the ID, one, to my chagrin, I did not know.

Counted 11 hares on adjacent farmland, lots of cowslips, lots of Brimstone butterfly, one or two Small Tortoiseshell, half a dozen European Peacock and lots of the same beige moth (perhaps a caddisfly?)

An American vagrant in Earith

I’ve been a bit under the weather with something other than covid but it’s had me stuck indoors for a few days nevertheless. I stoked myself up on some appropriate medication and ventured out to see the Black Redstarts, the Garganey, and the Blue-winged Teal that have all turned up on a fairly local patch (a fenland village currently with a lot of flooding).

There were lots of birders around with big scopes and a few toggers. Some of the birders is toggers too (to paraphrase Ice-T). Speaking of which, one of the birders that you can’t see in the photo told us he had covid, although thought he was probably past being infectious, I kept well away from him, the silly boy!

I latched on to one birder whom I recognised, he was well away from the crowd and had been there for about 5 hours, I asked him for guidance as to the whereabouts of the Garganeys and the Blue-winged Teal.

The Garganeys, which seem to have turned up in the British Isles in fairly large numbers from Spain recently, perhaps because of unusually dry weather there, were fairly static, but feeding and dabbling at a distance from the footpath of about 250 metres. More intriguingly a Garganey drake (Spatula querquedula) was on the far bank, roosting on a log, and right next to it the American vagrant. A female Blue-winged Teal.

Garganey drake and female Blue-winged Teal (trust me, it’s there, I saw it through a ‘scope)

The Blue-winged Teal (Spatula discors) is a duck that you normally only see in North America, Central America and the very northerly parts of South America. Intriguingly though our friend the Garganey drake, which is in the same genus as the blue-wing had been observed mating with this female earlier in the week. And, according to the expert was spending a lot of time with her. Another of the Garganey drakes, or maybe the same one, had also been seen mating a female another species in the same genus, a Northern Shoveller (Spatula clypeata).

As to the Black Redstarts, apparently, there was only one around, but I caught sight of it as it popped up to catching a flying invertebrate from the distant roof of a house beyond the village marina. No photo though. Sometimes just a birder and not so much a togger.

What do Peregrine Falcons eat?

What do Peregrine Falcons eat? It might be easier to ask what don’t they eat? Here’s a list of kills reported based on avian remains and feathers at the foot of the tall buildings frequented by the Cambridge Peregrines:

Bar-tailed Godwit, Blackbird, Black-tailed Godwit, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon (Stock Dove), Fieldfare, Golden Plover, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Grey Partridge, House Sparrow, Moorhen, Redwing, Robin, Shoveller Duck, Starling, Teal, Woodcock.

The Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) is the world’s fastest animal. It stoops on its prey from way above and has been recorded as reaching speeds of an incredible 300 kilometres per hour. It basically slams into its prey to kill it and carries it off to a perch where it will pluck the bird before eating. It will also cache chunks of prey on tall buildings around its territory to eat later or for feeding nesting partner, and later chicks.

Creating large plasma bubble between electrodes

Occasionally, I like to mention some of the search terms that bring new visitors to the Sciencebase website. One of those phrases that intrigued me somewhat is this:

creating large plasma bubble between electrodes

Now, I can half imagine it’s someone looking for information about a physical phenomenon, perhaps for a school assignment or maybe a research project. So, what were they looking for?

Plasma is often referred to as the fourth state of matter – after solid, liquid, and gas. It is most similar to a gas, but rather than being made up of neutral atoms or molecules, it is fully ionised. This means that every atom in the gas has been stripped of its electrons. A plasma therefore comprises ions, charged particles, and free electrons (negatively charged particles) rather than atoms or molecules.

We think of it as being the fourth state of matter, but there is an argument for calling it the first state of matter given that plasma is the most common state of matter across the universe, such as the core of stars, nebulae in space, the aurora borealis. That said, we do not tend to encounter it in everyday lives except in specific small-scale circumstance because plasmas form only at extremely high temperatures or in very strong electric fields.

One of those small-scale situations involves the formation of a plasma between electrodes. More specifically, a plasma bubble can form in the electric field between two electrodes as the field strips away electrons away from the atoms of a gas. The size of the plasma bubble depends on a number of factors, including the voltage applied, the distance between the electrodes, and the type of gas that is being ionised by the electric field. Scientists experimenting with plasma bubbles can adjust these parameters, to create plasma bubbles of different sizes and shapes.