Some impossible moths identified

Mothing is very different from birding. With birds identification can be achieved by sight, and occasionally with a camera. Very rarely certain cryptic species are now being confirmed through DNA analysis. The days of taking specimens are thankfully long gone.

Not so for moths. Many entomologists have long accepted that certain species can only be identified under a microscope, and broadly speaking the smaller the species the more necessary the specimen.

As a birder I resisted the urge to take specimens in my first year and attempted all identifications by eye and camera. Even with the larger moths this meant a few species pairs (Dark or Grey Dagger for instance). But in 2019 I reluctantly "took" a handful of tiny ones as I wasn't even certain what family they were.

The drill is that at the end of the year the recorder does a sweep of moth trappers to pick up their specimens for examination. Actually, one or two of mine simply expired in the trap (although these turned out to be ones I had already recorded).

Anyway, the point of all this waffle is that Nigel Stone, the recorder, has now established what my motley collection were. They included two species from my garden which were new to SP06 (the 10km square shared by my house and Morton Bagot), and one which I had not seen before.

The good ones in the garden were Coleophora laricella, and Oegoconia quadripuncta, the latter I had guessed at, the former stood no chance of visual identification.

Coleophora laricella under a hand lens - 31/05/2019

Oegoconia quadripuncta - 24/07/19

At least the Recorder's Guide states that these species cannot be identified without a specimen analysis. Not so a third moth, Acrobasis advenella which should have been identifiable from a photo and wasn't even a garden tick (although that honour had gone to a very worn moth which I had some doubts about).

Acrobasis advenella

At least I now know it does occur in the garden.

Finally, I retained one moth from my Morton Bagot trapping session at the end of July 2019. I thought I recognised it as Cnephasia ag, one of which I had briefly detained in 2018 before learning that identification was not possible from a photograph. In fact is has turned out to be a species called Eana incanana which is at least on the same page of my Field Guide as all the Cnephasia moths. Actually it was so similar to the one in the garden in 2018 that I suspect that was also this species, but I'll never know for certain.

Eana incanana

At least the guide did confirm that this moth cannot be identified with confidence from a photograph.

To those who may be totally opposed to specimen taking I can only say that I will keep the dark art to an absolute minimum this year.

So far I haven't caught a single moth in 2020.

Sunday January 12

A morning back on the patch. It was rather blustery, westerly with a few light showers and sunny intervals.

The morning past rather uneventfully, with some attempt to mop up the easier year-ticks missing so far. We walked along the road, vaguely hoping for a second chance with Dave's small woodpecker. Nothing came to pass, apart from a sighting of a Goldcrest, which at the time I hadn't realised we needed for the year, and it took until we were overlooking the pool field before we got the another  new bird for the year, a Sparrowhawk which was being harassed by corvids in the far corner of the field.

Dave fancied a kick through the marsh in the hope of recording the Water Rail. After flushing five Snipe and two Jack Snipe we did at least record a genuine arrival in the form of a Coot. We reached the flash field and were disappointed by the dearth of birds, just 32 Mallard, another Coot, a Moorhen, three Grey Herons and four Black-headed Gulls. By hanging around for thirty minutes we did manage to add a fly over Cormorant and a fly through Rook to the year-list. Riveting stuff!

A handful of Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls flew over, but by the time we were back at the cars I still hadn't felt the urge to photograph anything.

This posting was saved from being unillustrated when I noticed a Kestrel dismembering a small mammal on a post as I drove back down the track.

Kestrel

Morton Bagot ringing news

Tony and the other members of the ringing group had another session at Morton Bagot on Friday. Their figures were as follows:

Great Spotted Woodpecker 4 (2 retraps)
Blue Tit 24 (10 retraps)
Great Tit 3 (2 retraps)
Long-tailed Tit 7
Robin 1
Dunnock 3
Greenfinch 1
Lesser Redpoll 7
Goldfinch 13 (3 retraps)

Its good to see a few Lesser Redpolls getting themselves trapped, it may lead to a clearer idea of just how many are using the area.

They also mentioned that one of the Great Tit retraps was a bird which had the pox when it had been caught last year, but was now showing no symptoms. So the can recover.

This morning they trapped in Bannams Wood, but this is largely outside my patch boundary so I will only say that all the retraps they caught had been ringed at Morton Bagot.

Studley Castle - Black Redstart

A few days ago I heard on the local grapevine that a (or the) Black Redstart had been found on buildings by the poly tunnels in the Studley Castle area. One had been seen there last winter, and my one attempt to see it had been a failure, so this morning after a text prompt from John (two days ago...I sometimes forget to check my phone for days on end) I thought I'd give it a go.

Initially it looked like it would be the same old story, so I started to wander. Specifically I headed towards Studley Castle, which is now a hotel in the Warner Group, and walked along the footpath past it. This was unproductive, but as I was returning to my car I scanned the central turret and spotted this.

A dot on a pole

Promising I thought, so I strolled up the drive and chatted affably to the security guard. Further views convinced me I was looking at a silhouetted Black Redstart, so I got permission to walk around the back from where I found the light was great but loss of elevation meant I couldn't see the bird.

I was heading back down the drive when I looked at another turret.

A dot on a turret

Promising I thought...again. This time I zoomed in and sure enough it was a female type Black Redstart.

Black Redstart

Other birds seen during the visit included a fly-over Yellowhammer, 47 Redwings, and a Fieldfare.

This site is even closer to my home than Morton Bagot. I wish twitching was always this easy.

Clifton Pits - Long-tailed Duck

So, time for a change. I very much enjoyed hammering Morton Bagot last year, breaking my species list record by recording 122 species there. But I have decided that this year I am going to get out a bit more. After twelve years of pretty much restricting myself to one site there is an element of phasing involved (phasing is a birders term for giving up birding).

In my absence from the Worcestershire scene a gravel pit called Clifton Pits has increasing come to the fore as a birding venue, and I had never even been there.

I found the place quite easily, and was immediately blown away by how big it was. One very large former gravel pit and a second smaller one. There was also a scraped area of shallow water which looks to have potential as a wader habitat.

A portion of the larger pit

The smaller pit

On arrival I quickly noticed another birder. He turned out to be John Overfield who had moved up from Gloucestershire a couple of years ago and quickly won his spurs, finding Pectoral Sandpiper and Pied Wheatear in no time at all. Needless to say it is now his local patch. John pointed me in the direction of the pit containing a Long-tailed Duck and I headed there immediately.

The Long-tailed Duck had been here for several weeks, and it would give me the opportunity to reconnect with a species I last saw in about 2003. All I needed to do was find it. Typically this species spends more time under the water than on the surface, and it took me a good ten minutes to finally spot it. It wasn't particularly close, and that is my excuse for the following photograph.

Long-tailed Duck (with Little Grebe and Wigeon)

Being a female (or maybe a young male) it doesn't have a long tail. In fact the majority of Long-tailed Ducks which turn up in the Midlands look similar.

With the duck in the bag I started to see what else I could find. My plan is to see birds not generally seen at Morton Bagot, and where ducks are concerned this is not difficult.

Pochard - female

Great Crested Grebe

Pochard numbered at least 15, and Great Crested Grebe at least four. Neither has ever been recorded at Morton Bagot, and probably never will be now that the pool is no longer a permanent feature. More distant was a Goldeneye, which promptly disappeared. Another birder arrived and while I failed to show him the Long-tailed Duck, he failed to show me two Egyptian Geese he had noticed on the smaller pool. Fortunately we each scored later in the morning.

Egyptian Geese

Although Goldeneye is very unlikely to turn up at Morton Bagot, Egyptian Goose could do, and probably already has. Some years ago I would occasionally see a visiting birder who would tell me what he had seen. One day he mentioned Egyptian Goose. Unfortunately he chose not to submit it to the county recorder, so the record is lost.

Other birds seen here this morning included a Green Sandpiper, two Goosanders, two Shelducks, 16 Shovelers, 109 Wigeon, 26 Teal, seven Gadwall, 54 Tufted Ducks, 22 Little Grebes, 154 Canada Geese, a Greylag Goose, and 18 Cormorants. So if you like your wildfowl, this is as good a place as any in Worcestershire.

One other thing I have missed by concentrating on Morton Bagot is the craic of chatting with other birders. In addition to those mentioned I also ran into my old mate John Sirrett, and saw another four birders all firmly determined to tick off Long-tailed Duck for the year.

As I left I reflected that this was great for a change, but visiting someone else's patch isn't as fulfilling as trying to find stuff on your own. So don't worry, my next post will be about Morton Bagot.

Sunday January 5

I was a bit late starting (again), and by the time I arrived Dave had already found the bird of the day. A Grey Wagtail was feeding at the edge of Paul's small pool and was viewable from the road.

Grey Wagtail

I should probably have tried to get a bit closer as all my shots were rather fuzzy. Dave had also had a poor view of a small-looking woodpecker flying towards Bannams Wood. Being commendably cautious he wouldn't commit to Lesser Spot, but its certainly worth bearing in mind.

Our walk around at least produced some gulls (completely absent on New Years Day. A party of seven Herring Gulls and four Lesser Black-backed Gulls flew west, and later a single Black-headed Gull circled over the flash field.

A large Peregrine (presumably female) flew over the nearest flash, unsettling the wildfowl. These comprised 117 Greylag Geese, two Canada Geese, 23 Mallard, and four Teal.

That was about it for us, but I've had an email from the ringers who were here yesterday and were very pleased with their efforts. Their highlight was the first Jack Snipe they had ever caught.

Jack Snipe in hand (Tony Kelly)

They caught 98 birds in all. Their totals were;
Jack Snipe 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker 2
Marsh Tit 1
Blue Tit 47 (20 retraps)
Great Tit 10 (7 retraps)
Long-tailed Tit 25 (16 retraps)
Blackbird 2
Song Thrush 2
Chaffinch 1
Lesser Redpoll 3
Goldfinch 4

Wednesday January 1

So here we are, another decade same place. I was out pretty early and was pleased to find it wasn't foggy despite a complete lack of wind. The heavy cloud cover made photographing anything difficult.

I got my tactics wrong today. A slow saunter down to the south end produced stacks of thrushes, with about 280 Redwings and about a dozen Fieldfares. The usual Peregrine was perched on the pylons and at least three Kestrels hunted from saplings and posts.

Kestrel

One or two Lesser Redpolls flew around, a male sitting obligingly above me as I walked along the road.

Lesser Redpoll

Walking down to the marsh, I noticed that the Tawny Owl was peeking at me.

Tawny Owl

A short squelch across the marsh produced eight Snipe and six Jack Snipe, but nothing else. The ringers have left their feeders up so I spent a considerable time ticking off Marsh Tit, three Stonechats, and Long-tailed Tits.

As I set off in the direction of the flash field I was dismayed to see a pile of ducks in flight. I was able to pick out a Shelduck among the Mallard, and several smaller ducks too distant to identify with any confidence. I was not too surprised to see a dog-walker being towed along the path in front of the field. Later on I noticed she had let her boxer off its leash, and no doubt she had done so just before the ducks all headed off.

With no sign that anything was going to come back I was left with about 40 Mallard and three Teal to look at.

By the time I had returned to the car my list was one species less than my last visit despite my having put in far more effort this morning.

I am not taking part in Patchwork Challenge this year, and if this morning is anything to go by, its just as well.