Magnificent Moths

It's been a hot week here with temperatures hovering around 30 degrees C. For wildlife that has already had to endure a freezing winter this year it's a challenging time.

The local house martins have finally settled on their nests. They appear to be breeding very late this year but in large numbers- with the good weather set to continue it will hopefully be a good year for them.

House martins are such incredible fliers and it's so wonderful to watch them swooping around catching insects. They seem to enter their nests at incredible speeds too. It's not all plain-sailing for them though- when I was looking at the various nests under the eaves of houses I spotted a very odd looking house martin. 

This is actually a house sparrow so what is it doing in a martin nest? House sparrows will happily take over house martin nests(1). They will even sometimes attack the eggs and young house martins and harass the adults. The sparrows will even do this and choose not to use the nest themselves!

I was excited to spot this female stag beetle recently on the edge of a footpath. 

It's likely this individual was looking for somewhere to lay its eggs as that's why you usually see female stag beetles on the ground(2). Stag beetles spend much of their life underground, only emerging to breed in the summer. The adults will die off by the autumn.

The warm weather has seen lots of butterflies on the wing over the last few weeks. One of the most common species locally appears to be the meadow brown. 

The other species I've seen in large numbers is the large white. 

Both species appear to be doing well in the local area though I must say there appears to be less butterflies generally than in past years. 

The highlight of my week though has been spotting moths and I've seen some fantastic species.

Some are fairly plain looking but lovely in their own way. 

This species is riband wave, a species which is attracted to light. I found it on the edge of the window- I'd kept the light on in the hope of attracting some moths which clearly worked. There are several forms of this moth, part of it's natural variation, and this is the remutata form.

This is a similar species which I think is small fan-footed wave although there are quite a few 'wave' species which look alike. 

The next species is more impressive- a ghost moth which I found on a gate post whilst it was still light. 

Once they become adult moths, this species has no functioning mouthparts and therefore cannot feed(3). The males perform a swaying flight display at dusk which is presumably where the name comes from- I imagine it would be quite spooky. 

Another stunning moth I found was this white ermine moth. 

I found this individual on our shed after dusk which made it quite the challenge to take this photo. The pattern of the black spot varies greatly between individuals and this appears to have relatively few spots.

A find yesterday morning on a garden fence was this species:

This was a tricky species to identify but I think it's a sycamore moth. To a moth, wooden fence panels look like nooks and crannies in trees where they would normally rest up so in a suburban environment fences are actually a really good place to look for moths. 

As much as I'd love to have a moth trap, a torch and a keen eye is the next best thing! 

1: RSPB: Could our house sparrows be bullying house martins?

2: PTES: About stag beetles
3: Butterfly Conservation: Ghost Moth
4: Butterfly Conservation: White Ermine Moth

Interesting Insects

The last few weeks have seen an explosion in the number and variety of insects around so today's post is an insect special!

Let's start off with a dragonfly, one I spotted sheltering in the long grass at the side of one of the lakes at Blashford.

This is a black-tailed skimmer, probably a female or an immature male due to the lack of clear anal appendages. This species was first recorded in the UK in 1934 but is now a common species. It is thought the creation of gravel pits is a factor in their increase as they like extensive open unvegetated areas. 

Like much of the UK, the most common dragonfly or damselfly species locally is the common blue damselfly. 

This species lives in a wide range of habitats from small ponds to rivers but is especially common around lakes and reservoirs. 

There are just two species of damselfly in the UK which have obviously coloured wings- they belong to the Calopteryx genus and are a type of damselfly known as demoiselles1. 

The more common of these two species is this one, the banded demoiselle. The spots on the wings start of as dark brown in immature males before developed into the black of adults. 

The other species is slightly less common, though is still fairly abundant and is the beautiful demoiselle. 

This similar species is generally only found in the west of the UK2.

I haven't seen that many moths yet this year but I did see one of the easiest to spot and identify, the cinnabar moth. 

As usual in nature, the bright markings are a warning to potential predators. They eat ragwort, a plant which is poisonous to mammals and unpleasant for birds to eat3.

Some moths are much harder to spot but if you look in the hedgerows and bushes you can spot all sorts of interesting species. 

This is a yellow-barred long-horn moth. This is a day-flying moth and you can tell from the pale tips to it's antennae that this individual is a female. Male antennae are actually twice as long as female antennae which seems ludacris- the antennae on males are four-times longer than the moth itself!

I am also discovering new insects I haven't seen before and they are endlessly fascinating. You might assume this species is some form of ladybird at first glance but when you more closely it doesn't seem to fit the bill. 

This is actually a red and black froghopper. Like the cinnabar moth, the markings highlight it's unpleasant taste to predators. This froghopper mainly gets its food from sucking the vegetable juices of grasses. It can both fly and jump up to 70 centimetres. 

A beetle next and this is a garden chafer.

I couldn't find much information about this beetle but I am intrigued by it's look- you don't see many insects with such different colored wing casing to the rest of the body. 

I'm seem a couple of interesting looking flies lately too. 

This fly belong to the genus Tenthredo and like many insects has the markings of a wasp despite being completely harmless. 

This one is of the genus Panorpa which means it's a type of scorpion fly. These are so called because the males have what looks like a scorpion tail but is actually claspers for mating- this individual is a female4. Scorpion flies scavenge dead insects are regularly steal food which is trapped in spider webs. Males are often killed by the females when they mate so they placate females with a present of a dead insect or a mass of saliva. 

To conclude, here are some recent photos of two more insects I've discussed on the blog before:

Swollen-thighed beetle

Roesel's bush cricket

That's all for today but there will be more next week with a focus on the larger wildlife I've seen lately.

1: British Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle

2: British Dragonflies: Beautiful Demoiselle

3: The Wildlife Trusts: Cinnabar

4: The Wildlife Trusts: Scorpion Fly

Thanks also to Chris Brooks on ispotnature.org for confirming the identities of many of these species.

Delightful Durlston

The local roe deer have been much more visible over the last few weeks and I've had several close encounters with them.

It's interesting to compare these two male deer and note the differences. The top deer is probably a few years older as it has much longer antlers(1) and it's both bigger and more muscly than the lower deer. I think the bottom deer is about three years old and despite its diminutive size it was very confident. It was only a few feet away from me on the other side of a low fence and once it gave me a good stare it ignored me and carried on grazing. 

Last weekend I visited Durlston Country Park near Swanage in Dorset. The park has a range of habitats from woodland and meadows to sea-cliffs so it's a good place to see a range of wildlife. 

I found a few insects in the meadows such as this bloody-nosed beetle. 

This flightless beetle gets its name from it's unusual defence mechanism- when breathed on it secrets a blood-red liquid from its mouth which irritates the mouths of many mammals(2). 

Another insect I spotted was this dark-edged bee-fly. 

Like many species these insects have evolved to look like bees as a defence mechanism but they are actually harmless flies. Well, harmless to humans. Their larvae are parasitoids of mining bees that nest in colonies in the soil(3). The female bee-fly will hover above a mining bee area and flick eggs onto the ground. When the bee-fly egg hatches the larva crawls into the underground nest of a host bee and attaches itself to a bee grub to suck out its body fluids. I love looking into invertebrate life-cycles! 

You can spot what looks like a sting coming out of the bee-fly's head which is actually a proboscis or tongue. Like a hummingbird, these insects hover in front of deep flowers like primroses and stick their long proboscis into the flower to drink the nectar. 

I noticed what looked like cobwebs on a lot of the bramble bushes and a closer look make me realise they were webbing nest of brown-tail moth caterpillars. 

These larvae spend the winter inside the webbing nests before emerging in the spring to feed communally(4). Few insects feed on plants of more than two different families but this species has been recorded as feeding on plants from as many as 13 families. 

You really don't want to mess with these larvae. The loose hairs break off and can cause all sorts of problems for humans such as rashes, skin irritation, headaches and breathing difficulties. You shouldn't get too close to it and should wear thick gloves if you ever have to handle one. A related species which causes similar effects, the oak processionary moth, has been in the news this week due to outbreaks in London(5). 

Cows were grazing on the meadows at Durlston and I was amazed to see a brazen jackdaw use them as a feeding opportunity. 

This jackdaw was casually walking all over the cow pecking at insects that were attracted to it. The cow didn't seem too bothered (if anything the jackdaw as probably doing it a service) though it did lift its head a few times when the jackdaw got too annoying. 

I was really pleased to see some guillemots at the foot of the cliffs. 

These seabirds only come to land to breed and spend the rest of their lives at sea(6). From the top of the cliffs they look like penguins and their colour scheme is the same as penguins for the same reason- when they are swimming in the sea from below the white colour makes them blend in with the sky and from above the black colour makes them blend into the sea. 

The breeding colony at Durlston is the second largest on the south coast and also the most easterly- it's also right at the southernmost limit of their worldwide range(7).

Whilst it was a lovely visit, I was disappointed that I wasn't able to see the peregrine falcons which are regularly seen on the cliffs and the area is also a good one for spotting dolphins but I had no luck there either. 

Durlston Country Park is a great place to visit to see wildlife and somewhere I'd definitely recommend checking out. 

1: Discover Wildlife: How to age a roe deer from its antlers

2: Wildlife Trusts: Bloody-nosed beetle

3: Buglife: Dark-edged bee-fly

4: Forest Research: Brown-tail moth

5: The Guardian: Health warning as toxic hairy caterpillars take over woodlands

6: RSPB: Guillemot

7: Durlston: Guillemots

Awesome Autumn

It may well be Autumn but no-one seems to have told the temperature which is refusing to go as low as it should be at this time of year. That's good news for the butterflies though as they are able to keep flying. I've been seeing the occasional peacock butterfly and plenty of red admirals though on Sunday (22nd October) I was amazed to see a small copper.

Bear in mind that this little butterfly has survived the recent storms which though didn't affect us too badly here did give us strong winds and a lot of rain. There are usually two or three broods of small coppers a year but it's possible that this was a rare fourth brood, something which has been recorded in the South before. 

It's lovely to see butterflies so late in the year and I'm wondering if I might end up seeing one as late as November this year?

Whilst the number of invertebrates is significantly lower than it was a few weeks ago there are still plenty to be found if you look in the right places. Take this ivy bush which I passed today which was covered in buzzing insects. 

Ivy's late flowering is vital for insects. A 2014 study(1) discovered that an average of 89% of pollen pellets collected by honey bees during the Autumn come from ivy. The study also highlighted the importance of ivy flowers to other species such as bumble bees, common wasps, butterflies, hoverflies and other fly species. 

I walked part of the Stour Valley path near Throop on the edge of Bournemouth this week and saw a few birds of note. Flitting about on the concrete supports for one of the bridges was this grey wagtail. 

Grey wagtails spend most of the year around fast-flowing rivers where they feed on various aquatic invertebrates like flies, mayflies, and beetles and have even been recorded eating crustaceans and molluscs (2). In winter these birds move away from fast-flowing water and can be seen everywhere from gardens to city centres (3). It's interesting that this individual is still near fast-flowing water, perhaps indicating there is still enough food for it here at the moment.

Along the route I also spotted this magnificent grey heron. 

At this time of year grey herons have spread out away from their nesting colonies(4) and can be seen pretty much anywhere where there is water. Around harvest time they can often be seen in fields where they look for rodents to eat(5)- indeed I saw a heron catch and eat a rat in a field earlier in the year. 

I also saw a moorhen on the Stour too. 

Whilst UK moorhens stay here all year round they are joined in the winter by around 30,000 migrating birds from Europe(6).

One of the most common birds I've seen this week are pheasants. They are really tricky to get good photos of though as they run away from you so I've only ended up with pheasant heads stuck out over the top of a field and pheasants running away. 

Pheasants are not native to the UK but were introduced from Asia for hunting- indeed, it's thought that they are one of the world's most hunted birds(7). 

Pheasants are legally hunted between the 1st October and the 1st Febuary(8) each year. Beaters walk around in areas where pheasants, and other game birds like grouse, are likely to be which causes them to try and fly to safety where they are then shot down and collected by dogs. It disturbs me that killing things for sport is still perfectly legal in the UK in the 21st century. Not only is it legal, it's also big business. 

Landowners that have hunting interests are more likely to provide and manage good habitats than those without(9) and this is often used as a justification for hunting. The government should be working with landowners to ensure habitats are well managed instead of relying on people who want to kill things- that's not real conservation, it's just an accidental byproduct. There are also regular stories of birds of prey, including rare species like hen harriers, being killed in suspicious circumstances around grouse moors so they can't feed on chicks. 

I enjoy the bright colours of pheasants and the way they scuttle around is amusing but I always feel a certain melancholy when I see them knowing that their days are likely numbered thanks to the idiots who think killing living things counts as sport.

I've tried something new today and have put the sources to the information I've used here where I can. You may be interested in reading further on things I've talked about or they might just help to prove I'm not making things up!

                                                                                                                                                      

1: Garbuzov, M. and Ratnieks, F. (2014) 'Ivy: An underappreciated key resource to flower-visiting insects in autumn', Insect Conservation and Diversity, 7, (1), pp. 91-102.

2: Santamarina, J. (1989) 'The Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) diet in the Ulla river basin, Galicia. NW Spain'. Ardeola (in Spanish) 37 (1). pp 97-101. Link

3: RSPB: Grey Wagtail

4: The Nature of Dorset: Grey Heron

5: RSPB: Grey Heron

6: RSPB: Moorhen

7: Robertson, P. (1997) Pheasants. Voyageur Press. ISBN 0-89658-361-9.

8: Game Act 1831- online here.

9: Oldfield, T.E.E, Smith R.J., Harrop S.R. and Leader-Williams N. (2003) 'Field sports and conservation in the United Kingdom', Nature 423. pp 531-533

Arachnids, Butterflies and Crickets

The year is zooming along and it's October already! How did that happen?

I'll start today with a red admiral from last week. Despite the temperatures gradually dropping there are still plenty of these hardy butterflies around.

The results of Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count were released this week and it was good news for red admirals. Despite the wet summer numbers have risen by 75% compared to 2016. A few decades ago Red Admirals were only summer visitors to the UK- they arrived from warmer parts of Europe in the Spring, bred here and their offspring flew South. Now many overwinter in the UK and the Red Admiral is the most commonly recorded butterfly during the Winter. 

The most commonly spotted butterfly of the count was the gatekeeper and other butterflies which had a better 2017 than 2016 include the comma, the small copper and the common blue. But it was a terrible year for the UK's three species of white butterfly (green-veined white, large white and small white) with all showing amongst their lowest ever totals of the count. This is partly due to the wet summer but may also be because they emerged earlier than usual, before the count begun. Certainly it felt like they were around in large numbers locally. 

Moving on, it's always nice when a more unusual moth finds it's way into the house where you can get a good look at it. This is a light emerald moth. 

These are relatively common moths which can often be seen in gardens and parks. It's likely this individual is from the second of two generations this year. The green colour fades over time until the moth eventually becomes almost pure white- this is common amongst green moths. 

I've noticed lots more spiders over the last few weeks, many obstructing pathways with their webs. 

These are both garden spiders, easily identifiable due to the cross of white spots on the abdomen. Spiders catch their prey in a variety of ways but this species does so in the one most familiar to us- they spin orb webs and sit in the middle of them waiting for insects to fly into the web. 

Spider webs are incredible feats of nature. The tensile strength of spider silk is greater than the same weight of steel and has much greater elasticity. It's also thought that webs are electrically conductive which causes the silk threads to spring out to trap their quarry- flying insects tend to gain a static charge which attracts the silk.

Another recent invertebrate sighting was this cricket which I think is a roesel's bush cricket. 

Interestingly, a small number of this species are 'macropterous' which means they have much larger wings than normal. In most populations it's about 1% of individuals but some populations have higher numbers. It's thought that this is a dispersal technique. The idea is that in well-established populations or in strong seasons the population becomes dense so macropterous crickets can fly further to an area where there are less crickets and therefore more food. 

That's all for today but I'll leave you with the bright red leaves I always love to see at this time of year at the corner of my street. 

RSPB Weymouth Reserves

For the first time in a little while I went on a wildlife expedition today. I headed over to Weymouth, a seaside town on the Dorset coast which is home to two small RSPB reserves.

First up was Radipole Lake, a reedy lake in central Weymouth. It reminded me a lot of one of my favourite nature reserves, Winnall Moors in Winchester, but this is even more urban. You can see just how close it is to the town in this photo.

My first sightings were members of the heron family, a grey heron and a little egret. Both are always welcome sights. 

There were also plenty of ducks around including tufted ducks and mallards. 

You can see a mallard here who looks a little different. It's possible that this individual is still undergoing losing it's eclipse plumage. Male mallards moult between June and September and look very similar to females during this time. It's also possible that this individual might be a cross breed, the result of a mallard breeding with a domestic duck or another species. 

I spotted a few cormorants sat on a pile of rocks near these ducks. 

Whilst some cormorants are resident in the UK, the numbers vastly increase over the winter months. I've started to notice cormorant numbers increasing significantly everywhere I've been over the last few weeks. 

It wasn't just birds that I saw at Radipole. It may be late September but there were still plenty of butterflies and dragonflies around including this peacock butterfly and common darter. 

Though not as glamourous, I also saw a large slug. 

Then it was on to Lodmoor, which houses another large reedbed. It too is located very close to the town centre. 

It was something of a feeding frenzy at Lodmoor with every bird I saw intent only on finding food. I saw my third species of duck of the day, a teal. 

This individual is almost certainly a wintering bird from Europe, probably having come from the Baltic or Siberia. 

Nearby was a moorhen with two juveniles still sticking close to it. 

Moorhen chicks can feed themselves within a few days of birth but clearly stick near their mother for some time. Moorhens lay between four to twelve eggs but it's common that only the two eldest survive as had probably happened here.

I was pleased to be able to get closer than I ever had before to black-tailed godwits at Lodmoor. There were good numbers Lodmoor and a few at Radipole too.

Most appeared to still be in their browny-orange breeding plumage but the odd one, like the last photo here, were already in their winter plumage- it may be that this was a juvenile. 

Another, much smaller wader that was present at Lodmoor were dunlins. 

Dunlins are the most common wintering waders with around 360,000 birds feeding on our shores.

I'll leave you with a few more photos of the lovely Weymouth reserves.