With most of my targets being macros, all my (current - if I find my 10 species before the year is up, I shall add some more targets) micro targets had to be found on day-time searches.
So the day before my target species was found I did a walk. It should have taken me a couple of hours, but as I did some fossiling, it took me slightly longer. It was a walk up the Fleet Lagoon. The sun was shining, and it was very hot.
The walk started with a Green-winged Orchid in some grass just off the path, which was nice, and the first I've seen this year. I'm no expert on plants, I must admit, but I presume this is a plant of coastal grassland (or maybe certain grasslands), as I've seen it before at Durlston Head at this time a few years back.
Green-winged Orchid - Fleet
So as I did an hour or so fossiling at Tidmoor point, I found several fossils, such as a shark tooth (not that common there), and the start-shaped crinoid Penticrinites, along with the usual ammonites, belemnites, and crustacean parts (these were fossils, by the way!)
So I continued down (or up) the Fleet, going from shales with larger ammonites, bivalves, and flattened gastropods (this was a new site for me, and I was pleased to have found it), to a the Forest Marble, which is a highly fossiliferous bed, filled with crinoids, bivalves, brachiopods and a mass of other fossils, and also the bouti beds, which is filled with the Brachiopod Rhynchonella bouti, along with Terebratula & bivalves.
At the Moonfleet site (which is where the Forest Marble is found), I noted some mines on Sea Aster, which I photographed, and when I got back, ID'd as Bucculatrix maritima, a new species for me, and was like to make it onto my targets next year (if I hadn't found it this year that is).
Bucculatrix maritima mine
So I kept walking up the Fleet lagoon, which if I came a month or so earlier, would be full of coots, pintails, wigeons, and brent geese, but when I went bird life was rather limited, with Mute Swans being present (one snorted at me and made me jump!), and passerines being Wheatear, Meadow Pipits, Swallows, Skylarks (singing), Chiffchaffs & a Whitethroat. Also, saw a skeleton in a tree (I presume a crow?) and a swan with no head (?).
Also, just after the bouti bed, there was the colourful leaf beetle Cassida vittata, which I've only seen once before, just about 5 mins from where I saw this one.
Cassida vittata
That's about it for the walk up the fleet, there was a caterpillar on Sallow, which might well have been a Red-line Quaker, but I am not sure.
So, onto the target. I went to Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens after work, and only had an hour before the gardens shut, so was limited on time. The target was found there in 2010, but only identified a couple of years later, and originates from Australia. Strangely, no ferns, for that is what they are found on, had been imported to the gardens from that area for a decade or so, and the tree ferns had been transported in a way in which no moths (or cats) were likely to survive, so it is most probably they have been there for a good few years, living undetected.
It only took 10 mins till I saw a small moth flitting above some plants, not ferns, but it was a moth. Then I watched as it flitted off, above a fern, where there were lots of little moths. I was certain I had found it. I quickly potted one up (I saw quickly, but it took me a little while, as I had no net).
I was right, I was looking at the lovely little moth of the Stathmopodid family, known as
Pachyrhabda steropodes, and managed my 3rd target of the year.
Pachyrhabda steropodes - note the legs!
As it only took me 15mins or so to find the moth, I still had 3/4 of an hour or so left, so I wandered round the gardens. I did wonder though, if you record plants, would you count one which is found at the gardens?? Obviously not the cacti or Cork Oak, but what about the plants which could have made their way there? For example, would you count a Spring Snowflake there, or not?? Anyhow, I need not worry, as I currently stick to moths.
As it happens, I saw several more Pachyrhabda steropodes as I wondered about, some being away from any ferns. I did check some of the ferns they had for sale, but sadly none had any sign of the moth or larvae.
Also saw Lady Amherst's and Golden Pheasants, but they where always in the shade, walking away from me, so have a picture of a cactus instead!
