Purrrfect....

26 July 2013
I vividly recall pawing through bird books when I was young and drooling and dreaming over certain exotic rarities such as Siberean Rubythroat, Pallas's Warbler, Collared Pratincole and Black-shouldered Kite, all birds I fantasised about seeing but never really thought I would. Well now in 2013 all those dreams have been realised, and my recent foray back into moths presents me with similar thoughts. As a teenager I did some mothing in Kent when I was sixteen, nothing heavy, just a white sheet , mercury vapour lamp and I am ashamed to say in retrospect a killing jar and setting board. I now understand, along with many others the error of such actions and much prefer to catch these great animals on film, or rather sensor/SD card. The fantasy goals being such individuals as Lobster Moth, Puss Moth and dare I say it Death's Head Hawkmoth...... Hmmm. So moth trap set last night and a new moth in the form of Ghost Moth was an excitement (please remember I am just a novice at this)....

So off to work quite pleased... and then to my amazement on the wall outside the shop.....
Bloody Puss Moth !!!! I couldn't believe it, equivalent to a Rubythroat as far as I was concerned, not that rare but one of those things you look at over and over again in the book and think I'll never see that in the flesh/feather/scale... Listed as common... but a belter all the same :)

And also a Plain Golden Y (possibly)

and the diminutive but rather beautiful Ruby Tiger

The rest of the garden was full of Moorhens, or so it felt, our three chicks playing on the lawn.

There it is then, a common moth, and I'm made up. Great stuff really. Lovely being a novice sometimes.

Moth time

Saturday 20 July 2013
Warmer evenings and the moths have arrived in numbers. Prompted by other people's reports I put the Skinner Trap out for the last few nights. As a novice I only tend to look at the big easy ones, but there were hundreds of micros in the trap most of which fly off when I start poking about in the egg cartons. So of more interest to me are the ones I can identify and these have been in abundance recently.
Last night there were nine Privet Hawkmoths.seven Poplar Hawkmoths, Eyed-Hawkmoth, three Elephant Hawkmoths and a single Lesser Elephant Hawkmoth  and many others - some shown below.

Garden Tiger Moth at rest

 head on

wings displayed

 

 Leopard Moth

 Poplar Hawkmoth

 Privet Hawkmoth

It's nuts

At last......
To say my nuts have been neglected this spring is an understatement. The garden birds have been favouring everything except them. But now with the arrival of lots of young recently fledged birds, the nuts are at last getting some attention.

The first sign of this was the arrival of a Nuthatch in the garden.

 and some young Blue Tits