By Ec(cles) it was windy

Well this was the scene that faced us shortly after 7.30am this morning. On the drive up from Suffolk the Shipping Forecast announcer said "Force 8/9, backing north-west and decreasing to Force 6". At that stage I was beginning to wonder if I had chosen the right day to do my first bit of proper birding in over 18 months. The (welcome) arrival of a small child has accounted for my ornithological abstinence until today.

No sooner had we pitched up and a Bonxie went right over our heads heading north. A promising start I thought, but within fifteen minutes, horizontal hail hit. It was a case then of do what you could to keep optics dry, hold on to your chair (demonstrated below) and seek shelter until it passed.

 

 

For the next hour, until it lashed it down again, there was a steady trickle of Kittiwakes, but otherwise it was surprisingly quiet. It was nice to see a Woodcock come in/off and it seems an age since I have had an Eider down this end of the country. But there was no flood of skuas, divers or auks. A handful of knot went north and a group of four Shag followed suit. We headed in at nine for a drink and things weren't improving weather-wise an hour later so we cleared off.

 

For once though, the forecasters had it right and things did clear. So just before Noon we got in for another stint. Visibility was very good, so good in fact you could see the Gas Rigs 16 miles offshore, and the kittiwakes kept on coming. Whilst we had been away, a couple of Little Auks had gone through. The last live one I saw was back in the 90's, so given the conditions today I was hoping to connect and fortunately one went shooting through just off the breakers about half an hour after our return. Millenium tick!

 

Other goodies included a Short-eared Owl in from the south, two close Scaup, Scoter in to three-figures and more Eider. Passerine-wise, a nice bunch of 15 Snow Buntings right in front of our dune-cover was tops.

 

I just hope that I don't have to wait another eighteen months for the next sea-watch.

 

 

 

Does the Ivy League finish tonight?

Looking at the weather forecast, it looks like winter will be turning up tomorrow. So tonight could be your last chance to get out and check any ivy that is still in flower for good numbers of moths. The last two nights have been very mild so I was out for an hour checking the two remaining patches locally that have not yet gone to seed. In just four nights this month, I have amassed a healthy list of 24 different species, all feeding on ivy. I have even managed some respectable photographs:

Brick and Yellow-line Quaker
You could confuse the two, given that they both show a black dot in the centre of the fore-wing, but note the straightness of the outer cross-line on the quaker. Both species overwinter as eggs.

Satellite
This is a beautiful moth. This one I caught in the moth-trap last week, but the last two nights I have seen individuals on ivy. The 'sun-and-moon' feature on the nectaring specimens were white, not orange as on this one. Satellites over-winter as adults and once the caterpillars get to fair size in May/June they are partial to nibbling on other moth caterpillars as well as the odd leaf.

 

Merveille du Jour

Yes, you are right, this is an absolutely beautiful moth. If ever you hear someone say "eerrh, moths, they eat your clothes don't they?", show them a picture of this and if that doesn't enlighten them, cut all ties immediately.

 



I can't wait for next autumn now. I love setting a moth-trap, but there is something more tangible about going out and finding moths "doing what they do". I am reliably informed that come the spring, it will be well worth checking Sallow blossom as one of the first main nectar sources of the season, but I don't find Sallows as readily abundant as Ivy. I will certainly give it a go though.

Stumpy

I was on my hands and knees this afternoon forking over part of our freshly exposed vegetable patch. Thanks to our friends The Snobs for that.



The weedy edge to the side of the plot, left untended all summer, was alive with grasshoppers until recently. Maybe with the forecast mild conditions next week, there may be one last chirrup or two before the first frost finishes them off. The bushy, purple-flowered 'weed' was still pulling in some bumblebees though. I am a self-confessed, atrocious botanist (in fact I feel bad even writing the word). My crude attempts at identification have lead me to believe that this is Black Horehound. During the summer, after I had read that it was the larval foodplant of an attractive little micro-moth, I was seeing it whereever I went. Or maybe I wasn't.

 

Absent grasshoppers and the odd bombus were not exciting me this afternoon though. The action revolved around the ivy covered stump next to it.

 

 

This was left from when we moved in a couple of years ago. Remnants of a leylandii-type thing. As I was digging near it, I hoiked up a small larvae. About 2.5cm long, with a juicy, fat body and a head the colour of a Werther's Original, it was obviously a Stag Beetle. You'll note, I said "small larvae". This one was a mere infant. They live in their larval state for 5-6 years (typically in buried dead wood) and I have seen them as fat and long as my little finger. I immediately dug a hole near the base of the stump and put him (or her) in and covered it over. A delicate touch was now required, as I still had a bit more to finish off. A few forks later and up popped these:

 

 

As well as being a bad botanist, I am hoping this year to receive a nomination in the "C**p Coleopterist of the Year" competition. Saying that, given their size, I feel safe in saying that these are parts of a now deceased Stag Beetle, probably a female. Why so? I understand that female stag beetles don't have much of a life once they emerge from their lengthy subterranean sojourn. Wafting pheromones everywhere, they spend most of the time on foot searching for suitable egg-laying sites. Once they have been courted to within an inch of their life, they burrow down to the selected spot, lay their eggs and then snuff it.

 

Stag Beetles aren't everywhere, in fact they are quite localised, but if you have a stump in your garden there are going to be a whole host of dead wood invertebrates, not forgetting fungi, lichen and other plants that will love you back for leaving it.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Well at least something has had a good year

Speak to most bird-ringers, or indeed read their blogs/tweets etc and the general trend for the 2012 season will be one of gloom. Starved chicks or abandoned eggs in Blue Tit and Great Tit boxes the norm.
The same came be said in the lepidopteran world. Butterflies seem to have had a shocker. Transect survey results I have seen were atrocious. This is backed up with anecdote aplenty from fellow natural historians. There was a brief window of Vanessid-joy in August, but Peacocks were a rare sight. The only glimmer of hope I saw was with second generation Large Whites, every one of which seems to have descended on my brassicas over the last month. Perhaps I should do a better job with the netting next year.
Their nocturnal buddies have had a similar rough ride. When I have been able to set the moth-trap during gaps in the weather, catches of typically abundant species like Vine's Rustic, Turnips and Large Yellow Underwings have been the merest of blips on the radar.
But wait, autumn is here and warm colours are edging out the various shades of summer green. Over the last week, the canopy of an acer viewed from our kitchen has caught the eye. Today, it is verging on scarlet. Beautiful. In the front garden, the five metres of mixed, native hedge planted last winter is on the turn. The Spindle has already reddened, but my favourite autumn colour, the lemon-yellow of field maple is only now just starting to appear. What on earth would we do if we couldn't guarantee a bit of autumn colour?
We have had some decent bursts of rain over the last couple of weeks and this has been a boon for fungi. Hurrah! At last, something to celebrate. The problem for me is a rather substantial knowledge-gap in this field. But I am getting to a stage in life where I don't lose too much sleep about this sort of thing. For the moment, I shall just do what I can to get out and have a rootle around and enjoy it. I think you should do the same.

 

Parasol mushrooms (so I am told)

Black Rustic

This chap taken off ivy last night.

Moths bonkers for conkers.

Perhaps I should elucidate. I have found a new wildlife drug. Checking for moths on ivy (at night) is utterly compelling and tonight it was all about Horse Chestnuts. The BBC website forecast showed twelve celsius so I was out the door just after eight full of hope. I was on the back foot straight away as my breathe was frosting and then I remembered the addage "never trust anything you read on the internet" - particularly weather forecasts.

I wasn't going to let a bit of a nip in the air put me off, so I got on the bike and headed out to virgin territory. The first 200 metres was cold and moth-less, despite there being a fair amount of ivy worth checking. Once I was out of the built up area (if there is such a thing in a small village), it was down to checking the ivy-clad maiden trees loosely spread along the roadside. It was pleasing to note that the temperature had risen too.

Two pairs of twinkling orange eyes soon showed in the white light of my torch beam - both belonging to Angle Shades. They were probing ivy wrapped around a Horse Chestnut that was still holding plenty of leaf cover. Four more trees drew blanks, but then I came to another Horse Chestnut and bingo! Another Angle Shades and two Setaceous Hebrew Characters were on show. It then occurred to me that I was only looking at the north side of the tree. Duh. The other side was teeming: Sallow, Large Yellow Underwing, Chestnut, Silver-Y, seven Angle Shades and five Setaceous Hebrew Characters. I also have a couple of moths in the fridge that I need to check up on.

After my fill of this chestnut, I headed back to the first one and checked the south-facing flowers. Success again. Black Rustic, Green-brindled Crescent, L-album Wainscot, Brick and Square-spot Rustic all showed along with more Angle Shades and Setaceous Hebrew Characters.

Only the Setaceous Hebrew Characters were bothered by the light, either flying off or hiding amongst the foliage.

Thirteen species in an hour. Magnificent and it was nice to see some new species for my growing "Moffs wot I have seen at Ivy" list. I suspect that the heavy leaf cover of the horse chestnuts was keeping the temperature up below the canopy, making things more moth-friendly.

Love wildlife? Get a torch and a jam jar.

Last night was the inaugural meeting of the Stutton Moth Group (S.M.o.G). In fact it was so inaugural I have only just thought of naming and forming the group. I must let the other member know.

It was mild, with a fair degree of cloud cover, so I felt that a check of the ivy was necessary again. I had staked out two stretches during the day and Tony (the other S.M.o.G. member) had some near his house worth investigating. It turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes of wildlife-watching. Something that anyone can do. The ideal time at the moment seems to be when Eastenders is on (please don't think that I watch this excuse for entertainment). Once this post gets read, I have no doubt that next week's papers will be full of stories about a sudden drop in viewing figures. 

The first stretch was in a sheltered, north-facing lane. Most of the ivy had yet to come in to flower, but we still mustered eight moths of six species - single of Lunar Underwing, Flounced Rustic, Brick and Square-spot Rustic and two each of Chestnut and variably marked Common Marbled Carpet.

Angle Shades

The second stretch produced our first two Angle Shades of the evening, another Chestnut and singles of Snout, Lesser Yellow Underwing, Grey Shoulder-Knot and incredibly the nationally scarce L-Album Wainscot. It is a moth that is becoming more common in this part of the world, but it is a fair distance from the nearest patch of marram grass (its larval foodplant).

L-album Wainscot

Stretch three was Angles Shades heaven. with at least eleven identified. Another Brick was seen, along with an Autumnal Rustic and best of all, a Dark Sword-Grass. The latter was well out of reach, so Tony went home and fetched a walking pole and a long-handled net and it was soon in the bag. It must have made for a bizarre sight.

I would like to rescind my recommendations in a previous post for using red light, as the moths didn't seem to give a monkeys. In fact, some of them were so intoxicated on ivy-juice I could have picked them off with my fingers.

So I urge you to get out there and see what you can find. You just need a jam jar and a torch.

Brick (rubbish photo I know)

Dark Sword-Grass

Chestnut

Red Squirrels back on Tresco - are you sure?

I grudgingly moved in to the 21st century back in February with the acquisition of my first smartphone and subsequent signing up to Twitter. It has struck me in the last couple of weeks how social media is so far ahead of the game when it comes to spreading the word, be it badgers, buzzards or a deviant teacher eloping with a pupil to France. I knew about the latter about a week before it got any coverage on TV when the Twitter campaign about Megan's disappearance appeared on my account.

Anyway, to the point. One person I 'follow' has tweeted about an introduction (or is it a reintroduction) of Red Squirrels to Tresco on the Isles of Scilly. I believe that this is being aided by the Red Squirrel Survival Trust http://www.rsst.org.uk/ I am all in favour of protecting the Reds that remain by any legal means which the RSST seem well and truly behind - hurrah to that. However, I am slightly perturbed by the Tresco plan. The 'Diet' of Reds on the RSST website seems to infer that they are veggies. A quick Google search (admittedly of no scientific literature) points to countless references to them fancying a bit of meat on occasion. A disingenuous omission. Can you see where I am going with this? I fear that introducing a (potential) top predator on to a small island might not go down too well with the resident population of cup-nesting songbirds. I well recall the abundance of Song Thrushes and Dunnocks on my trips to the Scillies, wishing of course that one of them would turn out to be a Swainson's Thrush or an Alpine Accentor. If I was a Red and it was a bad seed year, I would fancy nothing more than a quick nibble on a delightful, pastel-blue dunnock egg. A reminder here that Song Thrush are on the red-list of Birds of Conservation Concern and Dunnocks are Amber-listed. Or can you imagine the anger from the massed ranks of twitchers on the 16th October 2019 when a near-to-death Black-billed Cuckoo has the coup-de-grace administered by a Red Squirrel!

I was also slightly alarmed to read that the RSST wishes to pursue their work "with projects that minimise bureaucracy." Conservation organisations have to jump through an inordinate amount of consents, permissions and regulations in order to carry out their work. No doubt this can be frustrating at times, but needs must. Admittedly, I don't know the protocol for (re)introductions, but there must be a fairly lengthy list.

I think that this particular effort is mere tokenism and efforts are better spent where Reds remain. It also remains to see if this story dies on its backside or gains some thought-provoking momentum on the twitter-sphere. That is down to you.

Mothtraps aren't everything.

Well I thought, I can't write a blog about checking flowering ivy without  going out and doing it myself. So last night, just after seven I went out on the bike having recce'd some likely looking patches less than half-a-mile from the house. It always surprising how much of something you find once you look for it properly. It is everywhere.

I started out checking with a red light, but found this difficult to get on with, so resorted to white after a few minutes. The first patch I checked had a Large Yellow Underwing and just fifty metres later I came across a Common Marbled Carpet, its wings held back like a butterfly and it's probiscis well and truly wedged in to a flower. I estimated that only about 10% of the ivy that I checked was in flower, so there is still plenty of time left in the season.

I had to head off to a meeting at eight and as I pedalled away, I felt duty-bound to explain to a lady dog-walker what I was doing. She seemed a bit on edge by the goings-on of a luminous-jacketed headtorch-wearing cyclist. I had the evidence in some pots, so my story stood up to scrutiny.

All of the moths were easy to 'pot'. They do have a tendency to drop off, so it is best to have the pot underneath rather than coming in from the side.

Post-meeting around ten, a leisurely meander home along a different stretch was much more productive. Another Large Yellow Underwing, four Angle Shades and best of all a Grey Shoulder-Knot. This is our third Autumn in the village and this is the first time that I have recorded this species. Waring/Townsend shows it as common, but it goes to show that not everything comes to light (well my actinic anyway). This takes the Stutton moth list to 313 species since July 2010.

FOOTNOTE: I saw on the Beeb today that the whale at Shingle Street has now been re-identified as a Fin Whale.

Leave that whale alone?

A couple of weekends ago, the family joined some other volunteers down at Stutton Ness as part of BeachWatch. A mass-participation event where good souls clean up after bad souls. As we were picking up drink cans, plastic bottles and pieces of broken glass, you really did wonder what on earth possesses people to leave litter. Cretins, the lot of them.

It was sad to read about the fatal stranding of another beached whale this week. This time a ten-metre long Minke on the Suffolk coast at Shingle Street. It strikes me that Shingle Street is not a place that is thronged with visitors and it made me think - why not leave it alone to rot away naturally? I reckon a dead whale would disappear quicker than the soiled disposable nappy that one of the unfortunate BeachWatch vols had to deal with or cause less harm to children than the 180 shards of broken glass we picked up around one fire site. Yes, if a 20 metre Sperm Whale popped up dead on Blackpool beach then by all means deal with it.

Eager to find out what happens, I gave the Marine Conservation Society a bell. Their receptionist told me that all strandings are reported to a national hotline based at the Natural History Musuem. So I called them. A very helpful chap there said that if the carcass was fresh it would be removed for autopsy. I can see the sense in the science there. However, if the poor old cetacean was well past its best then it would be down to the local authority to deal with and of course cover the cost. "Health and Safety" was mentioned. Which brings me full circle back to disposable nappies and broken glass.