Sunday June 22 - weekly round up

The fact that I'm making this post a weekly round up should tell you that I haven't seen many interesting birds this week. I have been out and about, mainly early in the morning, trying my best. It's just not the right time of year for birding. But it's pretty much bang on ideal for insects, especially moths, and particularly when it's hot. And boy has it been hot.

However before I bore you senseless with moths let's get the birds out of the way. On Tuesday I went to Henley-in-Arden and found the small colony of Swifts which I knew nested there, somewhere. On Thursday it was the turn of Great Alne where my highlight was a non-calling Cuckoo. 

Today I joined Dave for a bash around Morton Bagot. The mixed singing Willow Warbler was still as confused as ever, the Avocets had gone despite the fact that the water is dropping again. The only waders were three Lapwings, a Little Ringed Plover and a Green Sandpiper, and I saw only one adult Shelduck. I'd heard from John Chidwick that the Shelduck family had still been present yesterday so perhaps they were out of view today. On the other hand a Shelduck had been seen at Earlswood yesterday (where they are rare), so it's tempting to think it may have been one of our birds. It was rather windy today so not many small birds were visible, although I almost forgot that we heard the first singing Reed Warbler here this year. It was singing from the hedge by the Morton Brook, so presumably a failed breeder looking for a new reed bed. It was left to the likes of Cormorant, Red Kite and Little Egret to pad out the day list.

The strangest sighting was an insect. It came as I searched came as I searched an oak tree for a Purple Hairstreak which Dave had spotted. I found a pair of coupling Large Skippers, a species which is usually only ever seen in the grass. I'll have to research whether they are often seen in trees.

My moth stories begin with a failure. John Oates kindly lent me some pheromone lures and showed me several species of Clearwing Moths before he released them into his garden. On Friday I dangled my first lure, for Lunar Hornet Moth, and caught nothing. I guess that means there are none within sniffing distance of the garden. I'll be trying for other species in the next few weeks.

That night, the warmest of the year, my light trap was deployed. I awoke at 04:00 on Saturday morning and found hundreds of Ermine Moths, mostly Bird-cherry Ermine plastering the window frames of the utility room. Five hours later I had counted 475 moths, the half that weren't Ermine Moths comprised 55 species, 22 of them new for the year. Before I get to the six species which were new for the garden (five of them lifers) I will throw in a token bird. A juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker landed in a tree above the garden.

A nice distraction.

The first nfg (new for garden) was visible as a tantalising shape against the inside wall of the trap, blurred behind the perspex lid. Once I'd carefully opened the trap it stayed put and turned out to be a Brown Scallop, a fairly local species which had previously been the highlight of one of Heart of England Forest's bioblitzes a couple of years ago. Now one had found its way to my suburban garden.

Brown Scallop

A little while later I spotted another new moth, this time on one of the perspex lids of the trap. I could tell that it was a large micro of the Mother of Pearl family. The quickest option was to deploy obsidentify which unequivocally stated it was European Corn-borer, a scarce migrant in Warwickshire.

European Corn-borer

Further research suggests this could be only the sixth or seventh county record.

I started going through the egg-boxes and was startled when a Four-spotted Footman crawled into view. This time I recognised it from seeing images on line. It was a male, so was unspotted.

Four-spotted Footman

This unmistakable moth was probably the ninth for Warwickshire. Another migrant, although they do appear to be breeding now in southern England.

Another egg-box gave me my last new macro moth. It was a Pinion-streaked Snout, a macro in name only as it was as small as many of the micros which had been attracted in droves.

Pinion-streaked Snout (centre), the one on the left is a Dun-bar

I have to admit that warm nights at this time of year are somewhat daunting because of the sheer number and variety of micros which need capturing and identifying. Some of them are so similar to other species that the official advice is to arrange for an expert to examine them under a microscope.

An alternative is to try and photograph them and hope your posted on-line photograph will lead to an identification. I had three moths in this category. One I instantly recognised as Regal or Maple Piercer Pammene regiana or trauniana. The reason I recognised it was that four years ago I had caught what I decided was Maple Piercer (and was backed up by an on-line expert) only to find out later that this was the scarcer of the two, and only a specimen would be acceptable to the recorder. This time I was pretty certain it was the commoner Regal Piercer, so I recorded it as such.

Pammene regiana

The other moth had me completely stumped. It was an Epinotia, one of many near identical species. I guessed it would probably require genitalia examination, but in the course of trying to photograph it I allowed it to escape. All that was left was to suggest my best guess, to @UKMothIdentification, which was Common Spruce Tortrix Epinotia tedella. This gave me a tentative thumbs up "it does have the feel of tedella". I will be submitting it as such, but suspect it will not be fully accepted.

Epinotia tedella (probably)

Finally I came up with Epinotia abbreviana for another diddy one, but it wasn't particularly well marked and so I have decided to get it checked by gen det. I'll find out if I was right next January.

The whole morning was semi-organised chaos, and the full list of new moths for the year are on the 2025 Garden year-list page.

Birds are a lot easier, but in June and July the draw of moths becomes irresistible. I hesitate to say I'm drawn like a moth to the flame.