Friday August 11 - The perfect antidote

 It's been a fun-packed week. After I chose to pay a rather dull visit to Morton Bagot on Tuesday morning, Lyn and I were entertaining our house guests until yesterday when everyone went their separate ways. The Black Country Living Museum was absolutely jam-packed with families and long queues (mainly for fish and chips), but it wasn't that which tired me out. 

No, it was my "brilliant idea" to run a moth trap on Wednesday night for the entertainment of one of our guests in particular. Owen is six years old and very excitable, I am sixty-four and knackered. More of what ensued later.

This morning I needed the antidote. I needed to relax, and where better than Morton Bagot. The weather has improved, and although the southerly was on the breezy side of perfect it was sunny enough to give insects a chance.

It is of course August, and having walked along the access road from Netherstead I was pleased to see a collection of hirundines on the roadside wires. I'm sure I used to see gatherings of up to a hundred, but the 15 or so present today was a pleasant reminder of those days and a promise of the autumn days which lie ahead.

Mostly House Martins

Other good signs were a singing Willow Warbler, and an interesting chat with the stock man who beckoned me to his Land Rover to show me photographs of a Grass Snake he had noticed by the dragonfly pools a few days ago. My own experience of that species here involves little more than a fleeting view of a tail disappearing into the long grass.

I reached the small pond beyond where the ringers generally set their nets and was harangued by a vocal Sedge Warbler. I wasn't sure whether it was mobbing me or something in the bullrushes (perhaps a snake), but the effect was a magical few minutes as it was joined by Chiffchaffs, a Lesser Whitethroat, a Blackcap, and a Common Whitethroat. I treasure these moments when previously elusive warblers are for a fleeting moment easy to see.

Sedge Warbler

Chiffchaff

As I stood there, searching the hedge beyond the pond for more migrants, I struck gold. A small brown butterfly flew from the hedge and as I clocked the orange dot on the upperside of each of its forewings once it perched I realised my long wait for a Brown Hairstreak was over.

This species was formerly known to me only from a visit to Grafton Wood in Worcestershire which was their West Midlands stronghold in the 1980s. That sighting, like today's, was of a female with its strikingly patterned upperwing. In recent years they have started edging their range northwards and now occur in blackthorn hedges near Redditch. They may also have been seen at Morton Bagot, but not by me until today.

This is where the story turns towards anticlimax. The camera was engaged, but the butterfly was small and distant, and when I zoomed in it was no longer there. I hung around, hoping it would reappear, before slowly walking down the hedge hoping to see another one. About 100 yards further on I spotted a Hairstreak butterfly. It was brown, it was resting on a blackthorn leaf, it really should have been the right species. But it was a very worn, non-purple, Purple Hairstreak.

Purple Hairstreak

This might actually be my first of the year, and I was quite pleased with myself for spotting it. But it wasn't a Brown Hairstreak, and neither were the little orange moths which flew chaotically along the hedge line. I assumed these were Vapourer moths, but you never see them perched.....until one day you do.

Vapourer

 So another year-tick, but still not a Brown Hairstreak. 

The rest of the visit followed a familiar pattern. Five Green Sandpipers, 28 Lapwings two Little Egrets, and five Teal on the various flashes and pools, and some good views of more small butterflies; Brown Argus and Small Copper. 

Now, back to Wednesday. I was up before dawn, dragging the moth-trap into the utility room before retiring for a bowl of cereal. I returned to find the room was splattered with moths. Most were Large Yellow Underwings and by the end of the day I had counted 117 of them, and 106 Yponomeuta micro-moths. These are little white moths dotted with black pin-pricks. The most heavily dotted are Bird-cherry Ermines, but many of the rest are too difficult for me to be confident of. This is a shame because I did have a stab at naming some as Willow Ermine without realising I hadn't previously recorded them. I omitted to photograph them.

Ruby Tiger (nfy)

There were 14 new for the year, which I have added to my moth year-list page. The real fun started when Owen arrived. His Mum and Granny gratefully allowed him to join me to look into the moth-trap which, four hours after I had started catching the ones on the walls and ceiling, was still full of moths. The little lad was in equal measure fascinated, delighted, and scared (when some of the massive Large Yellow Underwings fluttered away from the egg-cartons they had been sleeping in). We caught a large Diving Beetle and released it into the bird-bath where it promptly swam under a floating leaf.

Following a break for lunch, which I was trying to prepare with the help of another guest (thanks Jan), the moth game got even better for Owen when I pointed out that more moths were probably hiding. Every picture on the walls was lifted, and pretty much all of them had moths behind them. Eventually I declared the room moth-free and everyone went home.

Of course, it wasn't at all. Come the evening, another twenty or so appeared and had to be caught, identified and removed.

The final total was 342 moths of 57 species, and one very tired observer.