:: Wild Places Blog ::

Well it’s been somewhat of a stressful ten days or so since the last update - ending in good news though as we’ve now exchanged contracts on Ian’s house sale and had the offer accepted on a lovely place in South Uist (a bungalow for when we are old and decrepid haha). Packing up the house contents into boxes is well under way and the shelves are looking bare.

Happily we are still finding time to moth, lots in the trap are now familiar to us - and so speeding up the time it takes us in identifying them. Still, we haven’t had a session yet without a new moth so that is good too.

Had these Peppered Moths - there are two different forms (i remember studying them in the genetics section when i did the Open University Science foundation course). The story goes roughly like this: the white form was the most common and their colouring was good camoflague for them when resting on lichen-covered tree trunks. The industrial revolution came along and the smoke and air pollutants killed off the lichens and covered the trees in soot - the less-common black (carbonaria) form then had the advantage and became the most common. Now, with improvements in environmental standards the black form is becoming less and less common. An example of natural selection in easily explained circumstances.

Peppered Moth (Biston betularia f. carbonaria)

Peppered Moth (Biston betularia, typical form)

While emptying the trap one morning (we take it into the conservatory) a Woodpigeon landed in the garden - it had a ring and we assumed it was one we’d done earlier this year - it had bought it’s youngster with it - didn’t look like it had been out of the nest very long.

Spot the ring...

Maybe she'd brought the youngster to get a ring. Next time maybe :)

This is the usual scene when we are emptying the trap (you can see the packing is going well!)

ID books out, notebook and hand lens to hand and lots of moths in pots

I must say that we’ve caught some stunning moths again this week:-

Blotched Emerald (Comibaena bajularia)

Barred Yellow (Cidaria fulvata)

Snout (Hypena proboscidalis)

We received news of a Blackbird that we had ringed (CT82709) in April 2009 as a second year male (5M). It hadn’t moved very far, just up the road in fact. It had sadly been found dead on the 4th May 2010 and oddly enough the report we received from the BTO said that it had been “found with dead unringed female”. My only thought was that they had perhaps got into someones garage or outhouse and become trapped together when the door was subsequently closed. Sad.

Another moth that comes in two forms is the Riband Wave. We have now caught both forms, as shown below:-

Riband Wave (Idaea aversata) the plain form ab. remutata

Riband Wave (Idaea aversata) the typical form with a band across

Ah well, back to the packing…

After some fairly poor catches at the end of May when the winds were northerly and pretty cool things have finally warmed up and catches in the trap have been good for the last week. With having a small garden we don’t trap every night as we don’t want to interfere too much with the moths feeding and mating. The trap is usually out, weather permitting, 3 nights a week with at least 1 night between sessions.

It never ceases to amaze me that there is always something new in the trap!

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, it has been so fascinating so see what turns up.

Silver Y (Autographa gamma) a migrant moth which doesn't over-winter

Blood-vein (Timandra comai)

The night of 6th June was mild, with a low of 10′C and the total catch was 72 moths of 33 species - the highlights being 2 species of hawk-moth - just fantastic!

Poplar hawk-moth (Laothoe populi). What a fantastic moth eh?!

Pine Hawk-moth (Hyloicus pinastri)

I think one of the things that has fascinated us the most about some of the moths is their amazing camoflague. Going through the trap one morning i said “who put that piece of stick in there?”. It turned out to be a Pale Prominent, which does look just like a piece of rotting wood.

Pale Prominent (Pterostoma palpina) - how's that for bizarre!

Today we found this moth hanging underneath the low wall around the patio, again it looked like a random piece of broken stick - the Buff-tip

Buff-tip (Phalera bucephala)

Some moths are just plain beautiful, take a look at this White Ermine - not much in the way of camoflague there is there!

White Ermine (Spilosoma lubricipeda)

and this Light Emerald

Light Emerald (Campaea margaritata)

Hook-tips get their name from the shape of their wings, we’ve caught 2 species so far:-

Pebble Hook-tip (Drepana falcataria)

and

Beautiful Hook-tip (Laspeyria flexula)

Some of the micro moths are also colourful

Eurrhypara hortulata (Small Magpie)

and the Bee Moth

Aphomia sociella (Bee Moth). Sexually dimorphic, this is the female

Aphomia sociella (Bee Moth), male

All the moths we have caught so far have been listed as common or locally common with just the one migrant (the Silver Y) but having only just started mothing this year they have all been new to us. Our best session was in Shropshire where we had over 200 moths in and around the trap of 46 species - we sat from 5am until 11am - 6 hours identifying the many moths that were new to us - we also had a lot of pugs which we didn’t have the time or skill to identify and of course there were also quite a few micros which we had to let go without identifying. Now my parents are firmly under the impression that i’ve gone completely bonkers I tell them it’s my age

Just gone 5am and Ian getting stuck in to the id challenges

As a ringer i always get a small thrill of excitement to find an envelope from the BTO in the post - you can recognise it immediately as “news about a ringed bird”. The one today was to tell me that one of the Greenfinches i had ringed in Shropshire in January had been re-captured at The Rea, also in Shropshire, and famous as being the home of C. J. Wildbirdfoods.

This isn’t the first time they have captured a Greenfinch that i’d ringed and i’d also had a number of Greenfinches that they had ringed. There certainly seems to be a bit of a flyway going on over the 6km between mum and dad’s house and CJ’s so i thought i would put together the information i had to see just how many there have been.

Some terminology may be helpful:

Control = A bird wearing a ring that was put on at another site - for most species this is a bird that has moved more than 5km between the site it was ringed and the site it was re-captured.

So to sum up simply - we’ve captured 7 of the Greenfinches they ringed, and they’ve captured 2 of ours.

Just out of interest mum always uses C.J. Wildbirdfoods bird seed!

Greenfinch

We didn’t hold out much hope for a bumper moth night as we had already had the trap out twice this week - on the 9th and 11th May and had caught precisely nothing. Although it had been warm during the daytime the temperature was due to fall as low as 3′C during the night. But you gotta try haven’t you.

I got up at 5am to turn off the trap lamp - immediately found a moth on the top of the trap and grabbed a pot. It wasn’t a moth either of us recognised immediately. Ian spotted another moth - a tiny orange-looking one - i didn’t even see it at first. That was also potted up and we began our trawl through the id books.

Muslin Moth (Diaphora mendica)

The moth i’d found wandering around on the top of the trap was a Muslin Moth (Diaphora mendica) a moth belonging to the Arctiidae family - sub-family Arctiinae (which includes the tiger and ermine moths).

Underside of the Muslin Moth

The micro moth Ian had found was, we assumed from the book a Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner. This species was only first discovered in Macedonia in 1985 (source: British Moths) and has since spread throughout Europe. The larvae cause damage to Horse Chestnut tree leaves as that is their food plant.

Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner

Inside the trap itself we found only one moth! A Common Pug. We photographed it while it was in the pot as it was pretty lively.

Common Pug (Eupithecia vulgata)

Ah, well better luck next year but we can’t complain, 3 moths all new to us.

One of the things we were excited about was being able to moth trap in a totally different area than the rather built up Hertfordshire town that we currently call home. Our holiday cottage was an old cottage with walls three feet thick and consequently had a deep porch. As the weather was fairly breezy and unpredictable we decided to set up the trap in the porch. I was excited the after the first nights trapping to find the trap full of moths that, apart from the Hebrew Character, i couldn’t identify. It soon became apparent that they were mostly of the same species - Red Chestnut.

A few nights of wind and rain deterred us but on the 28th we were able to get the trap out again. Only three moths this time a couple of Red Chestnuts and a Clouded Drab.

The final night trapping was the 29th April and although moth numbers weren’t great the variety was. We did have good numbers of flies though - there must have been a hatch of tiny flies because the porch and the trap were just black with gazillions of them. Lots of them seemed to have laid strings of tiny yellow eggs all over our egg boxes.

Red Chestnut (Cerastis rubricosa) - our most commonly caught species.

Glaucous Shears (Papestra biren)

Striped Twin-spot Carpet (Nubula salicata)

Puss Moth (Cerura vinula) - a pair of these found tucked away in a corner under the trap

the only micro we caught, Parsnip Moth (Depressaria pastinacella)

I was quite happy that i only had to ask the county moth recorder, Steve Duffield, for help with id for the micro and the carpet, which i had managed to narrow down to being some kind of carpet.

We didn’t do any mothing during our week on Lewis, the nightime weather was pretty grim - wind and rain. It also didn’t seem fair as our host has an aversion to moths. I remember visiting her one time and she took me to an upstairs room and pointed to a small upturned bowl on the floor. “Can you deal with it?” she asked me. Underneath was a moth which i duly repatriated to the outdoors.

Can’t believe it’s nearly four years since i’ve been in the islands. What the heck is the attraction, you might ask, of bleak windswept islands off the north-west coast of Scotland. The weather is always cold and windy isn’t it? Mmm, you just keep believing that and stay away

I’m sure that Ian has got truly fed up with me waxing lyrical about the place for the last few years, although, he obviously must have liked the sound of it as when he was thinking about settling down, travelling less and hopefully contributing to science and conservation in the UK instead of far flung places he suggested the Outer Hebrides. Who am i to disagree? Not that Ian had ever been to the islands so i suggested that really he ought to visit as it isn’t everyones cup of tea.

So, there we were heading north in the middle of the night, on schedule to catch the Caledonian MacBrayne (Calmac) ferry from Uig in Skye across to Lochmaddy on North Uist. OK, i won’t bore you too much with lots of text, the pictures speak for themselves really.

The Isle of Skye. The first thing that struck Ian was how cold it was

We arrived at Uig, Skye in plenty of time for the ferry so headed further north on the island to do some birding. After 5 minutes Ian remarked that perhaps he hadn’t bought enough warm clothes with him. I told him not to worry and that he’d soon acclimatise.

Birding at Bornaskeitag, Skye

Looking down on the harbour at Uig, Skye

A very important job while waiting for the ferry was to stock up with Isle of Skye Brewery beer - Ian hadn’t sampled these delights before and i discovered that there was a new beer that i hadn’t tried - Cuillin Beast.  We got a “pick and mix” box of a few bottles each of 5 different beers Black Cuillin, Red Cuillin, Blaven, Hebridean Gold and Cuillin Beast. Mmmm…

Birds in the harbour: Great Northern Diver, Redshank and Black Guillemot.

Aboard the MV Hebrides and heading for Lochmaddy

The ferry crossing was excellent and there were plenty of birds: Puffins, Razorbills, Guillemots, Manx Shearwaters, Gannets, Kittiwakes, Fulmars and a Great Skua.

We arrived at Lochmaddy late afternoon and drove straight to the holiday cottage that we’d rented as we were pretty knackered after our overnight drive. The cottage, Rona View,  was great, right on the shoreline. It is basic but was very comfortable and had everything we needed and was also complete with central heating which very rapidly took the chill off. A well earned beer o’clock, dinner and an early night.

The holiday cottage we used: Rona View, Grimsay, North Uist

Not a bad view eh?!

One of our aims while here is to go house hunting and we’d got quite a list of properties to do “drive-bys” of so thats what we did on Sunday as well as managing to squeeze in a bit of birding. Monday and Tuesday was house viewing - we were disappointed that our number one choice of property - which had been on the market since before December 2008 (we know this as it didn’t have a Home Report) was just about to go under offer - sad as it had everything we require - a garden with mature vegetation (rare in the islands!!) and ideal for ringing, “tinkering” (workshop) space for Ian, a garage, an open fire, oil-fired central heating, double glazing and as a bonus it also had a sea view, a mooring, 5 bedrooms and a studio. Ah well c’est la vie!

Don’t really understand what is going on, as most of you will know, my own house on Lewis has now been on the market for nearly four years. And there has been very little movement in the property market up here over the last 18 months to 2 years. As soon as we arrive here to view places they start selling like hot cakes. Of the 10 properties that we definitely wanted to view 7 of them went under offer either just before we arrived or the week we were in Uist. Typical. And i don’t think i can even blame Monty bloody Halls as his TV series on the Uists only started the week before we arrived - surely not enough time to generate lots of interest in the islands and put the prices up.

Seal watching in Berneray

Well i guess it might have seemed like a good idea at the time :-)

Our last evening at the holiday cottage and a peaceful cuppa on the bench outside. Even Ian was acclimatising by now ;-)

Just beautiful!

Saturday the 1st May saw us heading north on the ferry that runs from Berneray to Leverborough on Harris.

Surely on a sunny day those beaches in Harris have to be some of the most beautiful in the world?

Looking across to Luskentyre, Harris

We stayed with my friend Linda - most famous for her hand made soap - she runs the Hebridean Soap Company and is based in Breasclete on the west side of Lewis. It was great to see her again and meet the dog, Mindy, that i’d only read about in Linda’s blog.

Ian birding at the Butt of Lewis

The rugged coastal scenery at the Butt of Lewis

Butt of Lewis lighthouse. Of course i had to go on and on and tell Ian all about the day the Purple Martin turned up here, a first for the Western Palearctic, an exciting day for the dozen of us that were there on that Sunday...

The clean, fresh air promotes the growth of plenty of lichens

Eoropie Beach

Thrift (Sea Pink), i think, correct me if i'm wrong!

Boats at Skigersta, Ness - took the photo to make into a birthday card for my daughter - Kathleen

Orca!! Ian spotted these - the first time we've ever seen Orca - a very exciting moment!

There were at least 4 Orca and they were pretty close in - about 60 yards from us at their closest. Can’t tell you how excited i was - i phoned my daughters, texted mum and dad and various friends. On the way home called in to see Martin. When he said he had a job one of us could do we just looked puzzled. Anyway, i volunteered and was handed a plate with a couple of pieces of salmon on it. I must have still looked blank but Martin pointed to the corner of his garden. A Gannet! It had been taken in with a strained wing and was recovering. The only thing i regret is not taking a photo of it

A grey, dull day at Stornoway harbour

A grey, dull day in Stornoway.

One of my favourite spots on Lewis - Valtos harbour

Valtos, Lewis

A rare thing on this blog - a picture of me!

MV Isle of Lewis. Stornoway to Ullapool. So we came to the end of our stay - time to head back to the rat race - yuk! But hopefully not for too long. Time now to kick some solicitor butt so we can head back to the islands make an offer on a house. Needless to say Ian did like it here :-)

Over the two weeks we clocked up 95 bird species just in the Outer Hebrides, not bad considering we weren’t in “serious birding” mode

Packed our ringing gear and headed up to Lincolnshire on Friday evening, arriving around 9pm. A couple of beers and a catch up with James then an early night in readiness for getting up before the crack of dawn.

17th April 2010

James has recently been developing another part of the site we had been to previously. We put up a selection of nets and caught slowly but steadily throughout the day. Our first Chiffchaffs of spring were caught and ringed plus a Pied Wagtail, a couple of Yellowhammers and a few Linnets. The day was warm and sunny with very little wind - a really pleasant way to spent the day and a good selection of species ringed: Chaffinch, Robin, Dunnock, Linnet, Yellowhammer, Wren, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Chiffchaff, Pied Wagtail and Goldfinch.

James gave us news that the Goldfinch we caught last time we were here (17th and 18th October 2009) had originally been ringed in Kent.

Male Linnet

Pair of Linnets, in the net together

Pied Wagtail

This time we had all mod cons with our Argos special picnic table

18th April 2010

Up early again and another day of good weather. Willow Warblers singing this morning and James heard Lesser Whitethroat. Caught and ringed our first Willow Warblers and Blackcap of spring. Another nice bird was a male (by CP) Mistle Thrush.

My bird of the day had to be a stonking male Ring Ouzel which flew over, landing on a nearby bush giving me a great view. I wasn’t sure if the others had seen it so dashed off to find them - happily James had picked it up flying over although Ian had missed out.

Willow Warbler

A great weekend at a lovely spot - we hardly saw a single person. Yes, it feels like spring is here at last!

Well, our first proper night mothing on the 5th April brought us a nice catch. The night had a low of 4′C and the wind dropped to virtually nothing:-

1 Diurnea fagella, 2 Amblyptilia acanthadactyla, 1 March Moth, 16 small Quaker, 16 Common Quaker, 4 Clouded Drab, 12 Hebrew Character, 1 Chestnut. Plus 1 Nut-tree Tussock was found on the low wall surrounding the patio and 1 each of Hebrew Character and Common Quaker were found on the conservatory.

Diurnea fagella - our micro moth challenge

Another micro moth, a plume moth, Amblyptilia acanthadactyla

March Moth (Alsophilia oescularia), male - the female is wingless

Nut-tree Tussock (Colocasia coryli)

Nut-tree Tussock, seen from the side

A couple of days later saw us visiting mother-in-law in South Ockendon, Essex (VC 18, South Essex). The night was cool but dry and we managed to capture a few moths - i didn’t think it was too bad for a tiny garden in a built up area: 1 Emmelina species presumed to be Emmelina monodactyla, 2 Small Quaker, 4 Common Quaker, 1 Clouded Drab, 1 Early Grey.

Early Grey (Xylocampa areola)

Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta)

Emmelina species of plume moth, presumed to be Emmelina monodactyla

Back at home we put the trap out on the 9th April. A calm, mild night.

Over thirty moths in the trap the next morning: 1 Emmelina species of plume moth, again, presumed to be Emmelina monodactyla, 11 Small Quaker, 16 Common Quaker, 4 Hebrew Character (plus another 2 found on the conservatory) and a moth new to our garden, a Pine Beauty.

Pine Beauty (Panolis flammea)

Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica)

Probably the most amazing experience of the morning was that long after we’d emptied the trap and id’d all the moths in there we were drinking coffee, looking out of the conservatory window. Ian said “is that a leaf or a moth” i grabbed a pot and went out and collected a moth. In the meantime Ian had grabbed another pot as the one he’d spotted wasn’t the same one as me. While we admired our finds we found yet another moth on the patio, a Nut-tree Tussock. Now, all these moths must have come out after we’d sorted the trap as we thoroughly searched the patio, steps, wall and fence area for “strays”.

The moth that Ian had thought was a leaf turned out to be a Purple Thorn - what an amazing moth, surely as beautiful as any butterfly?!

Purple Thorn (Selenia tetralunaria)

Purple Thorn (Selenia tetralunaria)

The remaining moth took us a while, we went through the books a couple of times - feeling like real novices - but we got there in the end, Brindled Beauty.

Brindled Beauty (Lycia hirtaria)

I have to say that we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our first week - that feeling of never knowing what is in the trap when you visit it the next morning is quite addictive and we both really enjoy the id challenges and we both just love to learn about the subject. We are now looking forward to the coming week, hoping for mild weather. Planning ahead, we are also looking forward to a visit to Shropshire in a couple of weeks time and then on up to the Uists and on to Lewis - the moth trap will definitely be packed!

Must mention a couple of the good web sites i’ve been using to learn about moths over the last couple of weeks or so:-

UK Moths - an excellent resource for id and information

and the forum Back Garden Moths - full of friendly, helpful people

Steve Duffield’s site Western Isles Wildlife also has lots of information about moths in the Outer Hebrides.

Well, my birthday present arrived this week - a Robinson type moth trap - purchased from Bioquip and very pleased with it i am too!

Why moths? It’s been something i’ve been considering for some time now. I was shocked to read recently that many British moth species have declined rapidly - one report i read quoted the Spinach moth (Eulithis mellinata) as having declined by 95% in 35 years and Butterfly Conservation say that 60 species of moths in Britain have become extinct during the 20th century. Phew! If i can contribute just a little to moth research i’m sure it will be worthwhile. This year i’m hoping to run the trap in Hertfordshire (until Ian’s house sells), Shropshire (i’m sure mum and dad won’t mind :-o) and also in the Hebrides as we are planning on heading up there in 3 or 4 weeks time for a visit.

Being very much a beginner on the moth front i’m using the following books to start me off:-

It’s going to be a steep learning curve i know, but hey, i like a challenge! If you have any other suggestions or advice i would be very interested to hear from you.

Most British bird observatories run a moth trap at night and when i’ve visited the Jews Gate bird observatory in Gibraltar the last task in the evening was to put out the moth trap. The next day Charlie Perez of the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society (GONHS) would arrive and go through the moths. When i was there in September 2005 i was thrilled to see my first Death’s-head Hawk-moth (Acherontia atropos) . On the odd occasion when Charlie was unable to come up and empty the moth trap i would have a go myself and enjoyed trying to sort out what was in there - this was the first time i’d seen hawk moths and tigers - i hadn’t realised how colourful moths can be.

When in Canada last year, while looking for Indigo Bunting near Riding Mountain National Park, we were lucky enough to find a Luna Moth (Actias luna). I managed to get a photo although i only had my small lens on the camera. But what an amazing sight - it must have been as big as my hand!

Luna Moth

I was amazed to find that the University field station we were working at had no researchers studying Lepidoptera. Everything else - birds, water quality, fish, plants. We couldn’t even find a book in their library to help us identify the moth in the picture below. There were quite a good number of them around and they flew during the day.

Despite trawling the internet i have been unable to identify this moth. Any suggestions?

I used the internet to identify the caterpillar pictured below

Found outside the ringing room. From what i was able to find out from the internet this is the caterpillar of the Banded Tussock Moth (Halysidota tessellaris).

During my time at Innis Point bird observatory, Ontario, in Spring 2008 i was fascinated by what i was told were “tent caterpillars” i’m not sure of the species, it was possibly the Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum).

Lots of the trees had these silk "tents". I'm told that in some years the caterpillars can defoliate the trees on a large scale, although not usually causing enough damage to kill the tree.

As you will probably have noticed, i’m advertising my house in the Outer Hebrides for sale on this blog. I was really surprised to learn that during the last couple of days the Hebrides has been added to Google’s ever increasing Street View series. I must say that i was pretty amazed by the quality of the images, perhaps a bit wibbly wobbly where the joins are but that’s just being picky really.

(For the non-geeks amongst you when the map loads drag the little yellow man from his perch on the navigation tool - Street View roads will show up on the map outlined in blue)

Here is the link: 14 Upper Carloway, HS2 9AG House and croft for sale

For more information about my house: 14 Upper Carloway, particulars

To contact me for more information or to arrange a viewing: Contact me

Why am i selling such a beautiful house? Well all i will say for now is that i’m not abandoning the Hebrides and “watch this space…”