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July I
The first of July has dawned sunny and bright with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. We have been on holiday to our usual haunt of the Isles of Scilly for the past two weeks, hence the lack of any updates but I have lots of photos of butterflies, moths, insects and birds of which I have made a separate page, a Scillonian Miscellany. Going at different times of the year means that we see a greater variety of creatures and flowers as they have their specific seasons.
July 2nd and the day is grey and
threatens rain. It obviously rained a little during the night and therefore the
moth trap had very few inhabitants this morning. I managed to take a photo last
night of one which landed on the rain shield of the trap but did not enter.
This was a small emerald, Hemistola chrysoprasaria.
There
were a few small moths inside this morning including to the left a short-cloaked
moth, Nola cucullatella, and to the right a grass veneer, Chrysoteuchia
culmella. Also one which I had difficulty identifying at first, a light
arches, Apamea lithoxylaea.
July
3rd, the weather is decidedly dull. hopefully it will improve for the flower
show to be held in the village today. We are putting an entry into the family
class and I am hoping to do well in the photographic classes again. Last night
I did not bother with the moth trap as the weather had been rather stormy but
left the light on and checked before retiring to see if anything had settled.
There were only two moths, one the grey pug and the other a common footman,
eilma lurideola. As this is a first sighting of the latter I include a
picture.
Well I did not win the photographic classes but I scored highly enough to gain a third place, just one point behind the joint winners so I can't complain. I was pipped to the post in the digital class by a delightful photo of a privet hawkmoth, sphinx ligustri, which a friend of mine took and she was graceful enough to let me have a copy to put on the site, so here it is courtesy of Sue Meyer.
We as a family won the family co-operative entry and were delighted to do so, we came second last year and a success will encourage us to participate again next year.
With having the family join us
for the day there were extra pairs of eyes to discover insects in the garden
and our son-in law noticed the spotted longhorn beetle, strangalia maculata,
of which I was able to take a photograph. Then in the evening after they
had gone home I saw this Alucita hexadactyla moth. It is one of my
favourites because whilst it is only tiny the detail of it's wings made up of
"plumes" is exquisite, do click on the picture to see for yourselves.
July 5th has dawned bright and sunny bit the forecast is for the weather to
deterioate over the next few days so last night I made sure that I put the moth
trap out and this morning was delighted to find several moths inside and out of
which 2 were hawkmoths. Here are the pictures of some of the moths.
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Elephant hawkmoth |
privet hawkmoth, |
barred yellow, |
Dark Arches |
The Uncertain, |
There was also this
eudonia mercurella, a buff-tip, several common footman and one or two others
yet to be identified
July 7th and the bad weather forecast has not yet arrived although we are
informed that it is certainly coming today and tomorrow. I was therefore able
to put out the moth trap last night and inevitably there were some new moths.
One of these I had been anticipating since the Rogation Ramble mentioned in May part II, (May 18th/19th entries) this is
the brown-tail, euproctis chrysorrhoea, the caterpillars
of which we found in abundance whilst on the walk.
Here are some of the others I discovered this morning.
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large fruit-tree tortrix, |
marbled beauty, |
pebble prominent, |
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July 10th and the weather is once
again more settled. The weather for the last couple of days has been variable
with high winds and heavy rain on 8th and forecasts of mini tornadoes the night
before last. Therefore I did not put the moth trap out until last night. This
morning I was very disappointed to only find one inhabitant although I suspect
I should have expected this as the temperature dropped to single figures. The
one inhabitant was this Double Square-spot, Xestia triangulum.
The wind has taken its toll on the
garden and one or two of our shrubs look a little the worse for wear, hopefully
with some more stable days they will recover. The rain also seems to have had
some effect in that I discovered this parasol mushroom, lepiota procera. I
gather this should open right out to resemble a parasol so may take another
picture within the next couple of days.
Today
the weather has been very mixed with lots of heavy showers, disappointing
especially when we were at a barbecue. Fortunately very little dampens the
spirits of the English and as there were a number of gazeboes the party
continued and we managed to remain fairly dry. One real bonus of this occasion
as far as I was concerned was the point at which a humming bird hawk-moth, macroglossum
stellatarum, decided to join us in the conservatory and eventually settled
high up on the wall which enabled me to take a reasonable photo of one of these
at rest. Last year I managed a few photos of one flying, a copy of which I
include here.