July / September / Home/ The garden / email / Art Gallery project
Moths seen in the garden to date A-C, D-F, G-M, N-Si, Sh-the end
August 2005
August already. The
year seems to be flying by and already we are heading for the autumn. Certainly
the weather feels quite autumnal today with grey skies again and it feels like
it may try to drizzle. However the last few days have brought some sunshine and
Pete has been delighted to see a few more butterflies than we had been seeing.
Not many small tortoiseshell and no skippers as yet but there have been up to 4
peacock on the buddlia at one time, always far too high for me to photograph.
The hebe which is shorter is what seems to attract the gatekeepers but these
seem to alert to wait around to have a picture taken, although I did manage to
capture one on 'film' at the church the other morning.
Although it hasn't
felt like a brilliant year for moths I have now seen as many species in the
garden as I saw in the whole of last year, 209 in total. This morning brought
another new one, a pyralid Trachycera advenella. The count so far on this
first morning in August is 17, last year we saw 72, so there is quite a way to
go. During July there were 101 species as opposed to 106 last year.
Disappointed this morning, 3rd August to find that in spite of the weather
forecast it is grey and dull and raining. Last night was clear and it looked
promising for better weather after a bright sunny day. However the moths didn't
let me down and there were 2 new species in the trap this morning.
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Water Veneer, |
Yponomeuta plumbella |
August 5th and another
wet morning but a good catch of moths last night with 2 new ones and one which
I am still attempting to identify. The moth species so far this month are in
excess of 50 and are well on the way to last year's total for August of 72. The
moth to the left is an Aethes smeathmanniana and that to the right is
a Calamotropha paludella.
August 6th, aren't I doing well to keep this up to date so regularly!! There were only 4 moths in the trap last night, however one of those managed to be a species that I have not noted before. This was a Dark Fruit-tree Tortrix Pandemis heparana.
August 29th and the excuse for not updating the site is a fortnight's holiday in our usual haunt of the Isles of Scilly. This was most enjoyable and I think that my favourite photo of this year's holiday was of Old Town Bay with white agapanthus in the foreground.
I managed to identify 40 species of moth by leaving an outside light on and
taking photographs by flash between 10.00 and 10.30 pm. There were four species
new to me.
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double dart |
epinotia ramella |
Eudonia angustea |
parsnip moth |
Since we have returned from our holiday we have been to our latest granddaughter's dedication service and whilst at the reception afterwards my other grandchildren and guests drew my attention to the old lady moth, mormo maura, which was on the grass.
old lady, mormo maura
The night before I had been out trying to see
what was on my moth trap and when I returned to the house I felt something on
my neck, I flicked off whatever it was to discover to my horror it was a quite
large beetle. Once I had overcome the fright I took a photo and remembering
that there had been a clicking sound when I flicked it off I am inclined to
identify this as one of the click beetles.
This morning I was amazed to find that my trap contained an unexpected visitor in the form of a dragonfly. This meant that I was able to take several close up photographs of what I believe to be a male brown aeshna.
August has been a better month than last year for moth species in my garden with 77 as opposed to 72 species having been identified, this in spite of a fortnight away.
A new one which appeared on the 29th was this little Dichrorampha
acuminatana
Today on this last day of the month the sun is shining and the forecast is for it to get hotter before the weather begins to break up this evening. I wonder what September will bring, last year there were 36 species identified, hopefully there may be a larger number this year. I think it is probably getting too late in the year for me to have a poplar hawkmoth in the trap and I have not seen one of these at all this year although there have been more of the other common hawkmoths around and even the pine hawkmoth which is not so common.
click on any photo to enlarge.
Art
Gallery project
We are currently raising funds for the 'Fix the Floor Appeal' in our church of St Mary the Virgin, Little Hallingbury. Recently I have been playing with various programmes and photographs that I have taken and tried to make some art photos. These I am prepared to sell on CD for a small sum in aid of the above appeal. Please visit my Art Photo gallery and see if you can help.
July / September / Home/ The garden / email / Art Gallery project
Moths seen in the garden to date A-C, D-F, G-M, N-Si, Sh-the end