Busy & Moanings

I'm very busy at the moment, had no spare time to do any birding of any sorts (except of course hearing the migrant thrushes over head, and watching flocks of starlings about. So yeah, until about mid-December I will have nothing proper to write about, so yeah..

Now for the moanings part..

It's about names.. English names that is, of moths & butterflies.

Firstly, the Admirals and Emperors? Is this because they are impressive? Or emit authority?? I don't know, but wouldn't mind someone telling me. At least Blues and Coppers do what they say on the tin, though the majority of Speckled Woods I have seen have been in gardens or hedgerows, woods, I think not.

Now, moths, some have logical names - Snout, Red Underwing & Red-belted Clearwing, all make perfect sense, but there are some, sneaking in, with mucked up names..

Horse Chestnut - Hmm. Both English and Latin name are mucked up on this one.. Does this moth feed on the plant? Nope. The best I can think of is that it's mildly spikey appearance looks like a Horse Chestnut pod/coney thing.. (It's a long shot, I know)

Common Fan-foot - One of the rarer British moths, this species was probably much more common than it is now, so can except this one..

Another name which no longer works - Kentish Glory.. No longer in Kent I'm afraid..
To be honest, I don't like moths named after places, especially immigrants, like Lydd Beauty, or Dorset Cream Wave, seems like a rapid attempt to make a name, which doesn't work if the moth is never seen there again, I think the name should be describing it's looks/habitat/habits or after the person who discovered it (except Latin, which should be describing)

One I have no idea what the name is based on - the Vestal, what is a (non-moth) Vestal, I do not know..

Things with scarce which are scarce : Scarce Footman, Scarce Prominent ect (though I haven't seen the latter)

And on the latin name bit, the French Red Underwing is named after a prostitute :D

Suffering from the mothless Winter

So yeah, Winter is more or less here, with some places having their first frost last night (not me though, being on the south coast).

Anyhow, signs of Winter are amongst us now; leafless tree (mostly blown of from winds), dark really early, lack of moth traps, first winter thrushes about, blackcaps in the garden, and firework night finished..

So yeah, that leaves us moth-ers 2 choices, either sort our moth stuff out, sending in records ect, or birding. I will try and do both, pleased with the mixed flock in the garden yesterday morning - Long-tailed, Great & Blue Tits, Chiffchaffs, Dunnocks, Blackbirds (including one black-billed form), &, of course, the Blackcap. So yeah, Chiffchaffs still about, but here on the south coast, I'm pretty sure some stay all winter long.

Anyway, the biggest surprise came this morning, from my neighbour. He arrived at my door and there, in his hands, was a new moth for me. The fantastic Death's-head Hawk-moth! I think I went into shock, stood there with shaking hands with my cup of tea. Wow. Just wow.

So I have finally seen the Atropos, cheers to that!

Mine's Really Good!

Well, this was going to be a post all about mines, a thing which I've only started getting into, but this recent bad weather has blown most of the leaves away, so b*gger that!!

Anyhow, started doing mines a week or two ago, and managed to muster up 15 or so species in my local area, most of which were new for me, such as Stigmella salicis and Ectoedemia intimella, but others to turn up include 2 Parornix species and several Phyllonorycters, amongst other Stigmella and some Caloptilia. Unfortunately, the best moth mine I managed wasn't new for me, as I had one adult last year. It is the nationally scarce Cosmopterix pulchrimella. The adults are fantastic, albeit a bit small, being black, silver and orange in colour!

Sadly, C. pulchrimella wasn't locally found, but from my weekend away, enjoying the extreme winds of Cornwall. Yeah.. we went surfing in Cornwall during the peak storm time, which, don't get me wrong, is usually good, but they caused waves.. Big waves.. Very Big Waves.. So we were at the surfing beach of Perranporth, and after a day of surfing and a quick nap, we awoke to find the beach closed. Shame that. Only managed to find 6 moths, all larvae apart from an adult Silver Y. The others were 2 mines, pulchrimella and Stigmella aurella, which anyone whose looked at any Bramble at this time of year, will have seen them, little squiggles on the leaf. The other larvae were the combo of Fox Moth, Drinker & Oak Eggar, all in the same spot.

Now here's a pic of the surf.. It may look like small waves, but may I point out the size of the building above. Now, buildings are quite big (shock horror!!), so yeah, these waves were pretty big (with the help of minor exaggeration, let's agree that they were 30ft tall)