Sunday July 28

This morning was forecast to be wet, and started off cloudy with a few spots before remaining dry with a moderate westerly.

That's the end of the good news.

The bad news hit me as soon as I looked through my binoculars, I seem to have knocked them out of alignment overnight. So with the thoughts of an expensive replacement on my mind I found it hard to get going.

The birds didn't help. The flash field held 26 Lapwings and five Green Sandpipers, while the most interesting discovery was a Reed Warbler singing from a hedge near Stapenhill Wood.

Cue token bird shot.

Juvenile Goldfinch

The next generation of Cinnabar Moths

I'll be heading for the Birders Store next week.

Thursday July 25

Its not often it takes me two days to write a post, but there's a reason. To be more accurate there's 483 reasons (at least). I refer to my inaugural Morton Bagot moth trapping session. It was quite a night.

Thursday evening began with a bit of birding. I popped down to the flash field on the back of the UK's hottest ever day (until next year probably). It was a bit dull if I'm honest, a couple of Green Sandpipers, and 26 Lapwings. I did at least see the Kingfisher heard last Sunday.

So on to the mothing. I struggled across a couple of George's fields to the small copse jutting out from Bannam's Wood where he suggested I could site my trap. After a bit of a struggle in fading light I got the trap up and stepped back to the realisation I had forgotten the egg boxes! What a professional. 30 minutes later I had returned from home, stuffed them in, and plugged it in to the light sensitive battery. It came on immediately. Phew.

Now I know I was supposed to hang around until the wee small hours, swishing away with a net and periodically peering into the trap. Actually I don't know this, but I get the impression that that is what is generally done. What I did was go home and get a good night's sleep.

The hot night produced several moths in the bathroom, including a new pyrallid species, but I'll tag those onto the end of this post.

I arrived back the following morning, relieved it was not raining, and marched to the trap. It was full of moths, and indeed the surrounding area also had loads crawling about. The next six hours were somewhat manic, back-breaking (I must bring a chair next time), and often confusing. Very early on I "lost" my only pencil and had to go to the farm to borrow a pen. I found the pencil in a reference book almost as soon as I got back.

Moths galore

I enclose the above photograph to convey some idea of what I faced. It shows just one of the eight egg boxes, and you need to bear in mind the the other side of each box contained a similar number.

I don't propose to list every moth species here, but they are all detailed in the 2019 Moths at Morton Bagot page. I can begin however by listing the top 12 in terms of numbers. The catch was dominated by the grass moth Chrysoteucha culmella, also known as the Garden Grass-veneer.

Garden Grass-veneer - 286
The Uncertain/Rustic - 43
Large Yellow Underwing - 15
Smoky Wainscot - 13
Dun-bar - 10
Agapeta hamana - 9
Lesser Yellow Underwing - 9
Riband Wave - 9
Clay - 8
Double Square-spot 6
Ruby Tiger - 6
Common Rustic ag - 6

I normally try to distinguish the moth called the Uncertain and the very similar Rustic, but a high proportion were rather worn and so I didn't bother. The Uncertain is far commoner in our garden, and I think they dominated here, but some may have been Rustics.

I had expected to see a large number of new moths, but in fact most of the ones I saw had occurred at some point over the last couple of years in the garden. There were some new ones though, and potentially a couple of scarce moths.

The first one which I knew was something I had never seen before was a Brown-line Bright-eye, in fact I caught three of them.

Brown-line Bright-eye

In Warwickshire Moths it is described as widespread and fairly common. Another tray contained an extremely attractive micro called a Brown China-mark.

Brown China-mark

This is a micro in name only, being about the same size as many Carpet Moths and Waves. As far as I am aware it is also not a scarce moth.

Shortly afterwards I spotted a Pinion sp and assumed it would be a Lunar-spotted Pinion (the only species of Pinion I had seen in my garden) so I photographed it and moved on. It was only later that I realised it looked more like the much scarcer Lesser-spotted Pinion.

Lesser-spotted Pinion

What I should have done was check its underwing (how I'm not sure), or at least measure it (forgot my ruler), however I am hopeful that JS or DB will confirm it from the photograph. The species was formerly quite common in Warwickshire, but the ravages of Dutch Elm Disease decimated the population and it now hangs on in a few isolated pockets, and Morton Bagot isn't known to be one of them.

Another tray contained a cryptically marked moth which had me very confused for a long time. I thought it might be a moth called Confused, until a trawl of the Internet came up with the more plausible identification of Straw Underwing.

Straw Underwing

This moth is described as widespread and fairly common.

Not so my last moth of interest, and this time I was alive to the possibilities and photographed it upside down in order to demonstrate it was not the relatively common Yellow-tail (I caught one of those too), but the much scarcer Brown-tail.

Brown-tail

When seen the right way up, this moth is basically white and indistinguishable from the Yellow-tail. The Moths of Warwickshire lists eight 20th century records, but they are now annual with, for example three records from two sites in 2018.

It took the entire morning to go through the trap. It also contained a wasp (just one!) and quite a few earwigs and beetles. Judging by the evidence of several half-eaten moth corpses in the bottom of the trap, some of the latter were carnivorous.

I heard a variety of woodland birds, and a distant singing Yellowhammer I'm delighted to say.

Back to garden, the new one was Acrobasis consociella, and new for the year were Cloaked Minor, Single-dotted Wave, and Dun-bar.

Acrobasis consociella

Birding will resume on Sunday.

Postscript: David Brown has confirmed both the Lesser Spotted Pinion and the Brown-tail.

Sunday July 21

A morning of sunny intervals with a light south-westerly breeze. A surprise greeted me on arrival as I discovered a group of ringers engrossed in mist-netting small birds in the dragonfly pool reed-bed and along the hedgerows towards the other pool.

Dave joined me and we soon discovered they were members of the Redditch Ringing Group and they couldn't have been more welcoming and informative as they showed us numerous small birds as each was carefully ringed. The leader of the group was Tony Kelly, and I concluded that the remainder of the group comprised another experienced ringer and two trainees.

They had caught 67 birds by the time we left them, and were still to do further rounds of the nets. From our point of view their most interesting capture had been a juvenile Grasshopper Warbler (released before we got there) from the field where the adult had been singing last weekend. Tony said he had also caught an adult male in the reed-bed in June, all of which strongly suggests that the bird I photographed in April found a mate, stopped singing, and bred successfully.

Processing the birds

Their highlight had been catching a juvenile Green Woodpecker, not a bird which normally turns up in a mist net.  I am hoping Tony will send me full counts of the birds caught, so that I can add them to this post in due course.

Long-tailed Tit

Green Woodpecker

We left them to it and headed for the flash field. It contained a rather similar selection to last time; three Shelducks, 20 Lapwings, four Green Sandpipers, and a Snipe.

The walk back gave us the opportunity to hear a Kingfisher, a chance Dave managed to take and I kind of did as it disappeared up the Morton Brook.

We saw no new butterflies or dragonflies, but noted that there were many more Meadow Browns on the wing, and single Peacock which was the first since a poor Spring showing, plus a Red Admiral.

I didn't look too closely at the numerous grass moths, but did see my first Agriphila straminella of the year.

Agriphila straminella

Also on the look out for moths and any other insects it could find was a Skylark feeding young in the ridge field.

Skylark

Earlier we had proved that a pair of Goldcrests had bred in the hedge bordering the Morton Brook, where they had been present all summer and were now feeding several hungry youngsters. A rather atypical nesting site for this coniferous woodland specialist.

PS: Tony came through with the ringing figures as follows: Green Woodpecker 1, Great Spotted Woodpecker 1, Blue Tit 9 (inc 1 re-trap), Great Tit 11(inc 1 re-trap), Long-tailed Tit 4, Chiffchaff 8, Grasshopper Warbler 1, Sedge Warbler 3, Blackcap 3, Whitethroat 6, Lesser whitethroat 1, Wren 3, Blackbird 6, Song Thrush 1, Robin 6, Dunnock 5, and Goldfinch 9.

So that's 79 birds of 17 species. In addition he said that 75% of them were juveniles, which indicates an excellent breeding season. They even caught a male Emperor Dragonfly.

Absolutely fascinating.

PPS I almost forgot to mention that Mike Lane saw a Red Kite here on Saturday.

Garden moths - Friday July 19

The trap went out last night. A full moon and depressed temperatures led to a capture of just 68 moths, but they did include three new ones for the garden and several new for the year.

The new ones were; Maple Pug, Dingy Footman, and Common White Wave, the former being a fairly locally distributed species, and tricky enough that I decided to email a photo to JS and to David Brown to make  sure I was correct. David subsequently gave it the thumbs up.

Maple Pug

The key features of this rather nondescript little moth are its small size (hence the ruler) and a wiggly white subterminal line at the top end of the upper wing.

Dingy Footman

Common White Wave

JS may be away as I haven't heard from him, but I am pretty sure that the distinctive shape of the Dingy Footman and the straight outer cross line of the Common White Wave are enough to confirm the identifications.

New for the year were the micros Celypha striana, and Crassa unitella, and the macros Marbled Beauty, and Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing.

One micro is currently unidentified (some kind of Pyrallid), two flew off without me working out what they were, and most annoyingly a Thorn sp was either Early Thorn or Lunar Thorn, it flew off into the rain as soon as I turned over the egg box it was in.

It started raining within about an hour of daybreak, so I hoisted a large parasol over the table the trap was on, and thus kept my moths dry and, hopefully, happy until they flew off this evening.

Thursday July 18

Early morning drizzle caused me to delay a bit, but I arrived mid-morning just as it stopped. The rest of the morning comprised sunny intervals and a very light westerly.

Some hedge trimming at Netherstead led me to walk straight to the flash field. It was great for newly fledged birds, including a family party of Pheasants and numerous tits and warblers, but nothing standout. At the flash field there was much Little Owl activity with one visible bird and at least one other calling. I'm sure this means they have bred successfully again.

Little Owl

About four Green Sandpipers were visible but there could easily have been more. Three juvenile Shelducks remain and can all fly, so the rest must have dispersed. Four Teal were the only new arrivals.

I again failed to find any White-letter Hairstreaks, and had to be content with looking at the numerous butterflies in the long grass. Essex Skippers seem more in evidence, but there are also plenty of Small Skippers.

One of the Marbled Whites seemed a little too confiding and I soon discovered this was because it was providing a white crab spider sp with its lunch.

Nature red in tooth and claw

The only notable dragonfly seen was a White-legged Damselfly, my second this year.

White-legged Damselfly

It was left to moths to provide the main interest. George drove me to a spot on his land where he said I could set a moth trap one evening, and before that I happened upon a couple of micro moths which were new for the year, the former also being a lifer. I refer to Eucosma camoliliana and Udea luealis.

Eucosma campoliliana

Udea lutealis

I had been worried that I can no longer hear grasshoppers, but today I was accompanied by the constant buzzing of crickets (Roesel's Bush-crickets) and also Meadow Grasshoppers.

Meadow Grasshopper

The contrast between our suburban garden (thick with garden flowers and long grass but hardly a butterfly or bee to be seen) and the wildflower rich borders of the fields owned by the Heart of England Forest at Morton Bagot is immense. It really is a wonderful place.

Sunday July 14

Today was always going to be tricky. I decided that whether I would visit Morton Bagot would be determined by whether England beat Australia and reached the final of the cricket World Cup. They did of course, so the moth trap came out last night.

Dave on the other hand has no concerns about missing the cricket, and as I write this he is roaming the patch and has already heard a Grasshopper Warbler singing from the field behind the beehives, perhaps the bird which showed so well in the Spring.

Actually the moth-trapping went well. Approximately 130 moths have been found including three new for the garden, one of which is a scarce one (but increasing) in Warwickshire.

The rare one is Least Carpet, and was found nestling in the same egg box cup as a Clay, also new for the garden, but not particularly scarce (new for me though). The third new one is Scarce Footman, which is actually not scarce at all (I can even recall seeing one on a moth-trapping session in Worcestershire years ago).  I caught four of them, and 15 Common Footman.

Least Carpet (on right)

Clay

Scarce Footman

New for the year were Dingy Shears, Scalloped Oak, and the micros Bryotropha terrella, Eudonia mercurella, Dark Fruit-tree Tortrix, and Bud Moth (or Spilonota laricana).

One moth I didn't catch was a Swallow-tailed Moth, an example of which flew through the bedroom window a few nights ago.

Swallow-tailed Moth

I may be tempted to go to Morton Bagot this evening, or earlier if the cricket final is a disaster.

Late morning update: Dave had a cream-crown Marsh Harrier fly over him. It was heading for the Flash Field, but they tend not to hang around. The first for the site for about four years. I've managed to miss more than I've seen there, a trend which looks set to continue.

PPS The cricket was not a disaster, it had the most amazing climax i have ever seen, and a happy ending as England won on boundaries scored after the teams ended up tied after 50 overs, and still couldn't be separated in a Super Over.

This evening I headed down to the patch and duly heard the Grasshopper Warbler reeling exactly where Dave had heard it.

A Fallow Deer buck stopped to stare.

Wednesday July 10

A cloudy morning with a few sunny intervals and a light westerly.

As far as birds are concerned the mid summer malaise continues, the best of a steady bunch being some recently fledged Kestrels, a flock of 30 Goldfinches, and the continued presence of Green Sandpipers and Shelducks at the Flashes.

So it was down to butterflies to keep me interested, specifically orange butterflies. The first Essex Skipper of the year was a nice find, while Small Skippers are now abundant, and Large Skipper numbers are just starting to tail off.

Essex Skipper (female)

Small Skipper (male)

Large Skipper

Continuing with the theme of orange butterflies, I found and photographed a single Gatekeeper among the hundreds of Meadow Browns and Ringlets.

Gatekeeper

Among the flowering Knapweed I located a single Six-spot Burnet and two Commas.

Comma

I saw a good range of the usual dragonflies including a couple a female Emperors and a male Beautiful Demoiselle.

Mum's move seems to be on for Friday (but we've thought that before). The next post may be on Sunday, though this may be dependant on whether the England cricket team can beat Australia.

Sunday July 7

A morning of sunny intervals with a very light northerly breeze.

Dave arrived and announced we should look out for Hairstreaks today as both common species had already been seen at Marsh Lane. Before long we were staring at some hedgerow Elms between two Oaks in the hope that the diminutive butterflies would flutter by, and indeed they did. Unfortunately they kept fluttering and without seeing one perched we were unable to confirm which they were.

A little further down the same hedge some Blackbirds were going ballistic at something. We hung around for some time before an Owl sp disappeared out of the back of the hedge. Was it going to be a frustrating morning?

Happily we had already had one success, as a large orange butterfly which perched in a hedge near Netherstead could be identified as a Silver-washed Fritillery, the first of the year.

Silver-washed Fritillery

As the morning heated up, the butterflies became more and more numerous. Particularly abundant were Ringlets, and Meadow Browns. Not far behind were Small Heaths, Large and Small Skippers, and Marbled Whites. Several Small Whites, Large Whites, Green-veined Whites, and Small Tortoiseshells were also seen before Dave spotted a Comma. Unfortunately I missed it, but he repeated the trick at Stapenhill Wood and this time I added to my year-list. Another new one for the year was a Gatekeeper which flew by without stopping.

Until we reached the Flash Field there was not much to comment on bird-wise, save for a party of four recently fledged Green Woodpeckers at Netherstead. However, a juvenile Little Owl and anxiously calling parent bird set us up for a reasonably productive scan. The Shelducklings are all still alive and are close to fledging, two Little Ringed Plovers, a Snipe, two Lapwings, and at least seven Green Sandpipers hid behind the clumps of sedge, and a single female Teal flew in.

A preening Green Sandpiper

The walk back through the flower-rich meadow bordering Morton Brook was as entertaining as always, and the highlight for me was two Six-spot Burnets feeding on Knapweed.

Six-spot Burnet

Dave felt we had seen this moth species here before, but I can't recall them. You may have counted the spots and got to four (or maybe five). The large spot at the base of the wing counts as two nearly joined spots when the moth is spread out in a collection tray, hence the name.

Dragonflies always get up a little later than butterflies, and by the time we were back at the dragonfly pools we had amassed a decent list. These included a Brown Hawker which allowed itself to be photographed in the grass near Stapenhill Wood, and a host of newly emerged Small Red-eyed Damselflies.

Brown Hawker

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Plenty of Emerald Damselflies are now mating, along with Common Blues and Azures, while each pool we looked at was being overflown by the odd Emperor, and many Black-tailed Skimmers and Four-spotted Chasers.

The whole place is a testament to what can be achieved when chemicals are not routinely sprayed everywhere.

Garden Moths - 5/6 July

The moth trap went out last night and produced an excellent count of 150 moths, although the species total was a more modest 36.

Subject to confirmation from JS I encountered six that were new for the garden as follows; Scarlet Tiger, Elephant Hawk-moth, Leopard Moth, Mottled Beauty, Wormwood Pug, and Lozotaeniodes formosana. As a post-script another Pug I asked JS to identify for me as I wasn't sure what it was has turned out to be a Grey Pug, one I had given consideration to. So that's another new one for the house list.

Scarlet Tiger

Elephant Hawk-moth

Leopard Moth

Mottled Beauty

Wormwood Pug

Lozotaeniodes formosana

Grey Pug Eupithecia subfuscata

There were also plenty new for the year, but I will add them to the year-list page in due course.

Bathroom moth tick

My wings are well and truly clipped this week. My Mum's move has been delayed again, now set for next Wednesday. But in any case we have friends visiting and a funeral in South Wales to fit in before the weekend.

So I was quite pleased when a new moth flew through the bathroom window. I identified it as a Smoky Wainscot.

Smoky Wainscot

Screenshot of grey underwing from flight view