Brown Hairstreaks

 

Out walking on the Downs recently, there were still a lot of butterflies on the wing but most were starting to look a bit worn. There will still be fresh looking Red Admirals, Peacocks and Brimstones around for a few months yet and possibly even a Short-tailed Blue but the end of the butterflying season is usually marked by the emergence of the Brown Hairstreaks. When most other species are past their best the flash of bright orange stands out amongst the drab browns - that is, if you manage to find one.

Fortunately we have a couple of good sites close by and this year we headed over to Steyning Rifle Range in search of the target. Target butterfly that is, no shots have been fired here since the 1980s.

I would like to say what a wonderful day we had but Brown Hairstreaks always seem like hard work. We arrived early and spent two to three hours searching for that flash of orange. A complete waste of time. Males tend to stay on territory in the tops of the Ash trees, whilst the females coming down to the Blackthorn to lay eggs don't usually appear until after 11am. If you are really lucky you may find one sunbathing or nectaring on Brambles or Fleabane after egg laying.

We did eventually get to see a couple and it was worth the wait but only just.

It has been an unusual butterflying year. We had a shortage of the blue species early in the year. It did improve a bit late summer but they were still not in the numbers I would expect, yet walking on the downs now there seems to be good numbers of second broods.

Plants also seem to be out of sync with the butterflies. We usually visit Houghton Forest in August to photograph Silver-spotted Skippers and White Admirals on the Hemp Agrimony. Not only is it a great nectaring plant but it is four or five feet tall so you don't have to go crawling about on your hands an knees to get your shots. This year it flowered late, it looks good now but the shots are not really what I was looking for.

Hemp Agrimony looking good but I can't say the same for the Silver-washed Fritillary

Or for the White Admiral

Fortunately the Small Tortoiseshells are still looking good.

Small Tortoiseshell

The Buddleia in my garden at home also seems to be having a bad year. It flowered at about the right time  but it doesn't seem to be attracting the butterflies this year. Perhaps nectar levels are linked to temperature and moisture levels.

A late push has eventually raised my butterfly list for the year to more respectable levels. There are forty seven butterflies that can be seen in Sussex in a good year. I missed out on the Purple Emperor and Purple Hairstreak and the jury is still out on the Long-tailed Blue which could be flying through to the end of October. Still forty four is not a bad count and if the Large Tortoiseshell becomes established in Sussex I could be looking for forty eight next year.

Below are some of the late additions to the list.

Brimstone

Brown Argus

Clouded Yellow - it's a bit tatty but they all count

Common Blue

Silver-spotted Skipper

Small Copper

Speckled Wood

Wall

It doesn't seem possible that the summer is all but over. Did it ever really happen this year or is it just that I was isolating through the best part of it. 

It will still be worth looking for moths for a couple more months and we could get a warm September which will keep the insects active but the focus will now start to turn back to the birds. Which is only appropriate for what claims to be a birding blog. Bring on those winter days stood on the North Wall at Pagham waiting for that once in a lifetime find to turn up.

Bawdsey

A couple of weeks ago Sue and I had the opportunity to spend a few days with family up on the Suffolk cost at Bawdsey. It is usually a good place to go looking for birds but mid August is perhaps not the best time of the year to be finding anything. I did have some luck though, in spotting my first Cuckoo of the year, probably on migration back to Africa, but given my low expectations I wasn't even carrying a camera.

Fortunately I had the moth trap with me and managed to pick up a few new moths and a few I had not seen yet this year. 

Black Arches - Lymantria monacha

Leopard Moth - Zeuzera pyrina

Dingy Footman - Eilema griseola

Scarce Footman - Eilema complana

White-foot Bell - Epiblema foenella

Common Rustic - Mesapamea secalis

Common Wainscot - Mythimna pallens

Knot Grass - Acronicta rumicis

Lesser Swallow Prominent - Pheosia gnoma

Latticed Heath - Chiasmia clathrata

Straw Underwing - Thalpophila matura

Marbled Piercer - Cydia splendana

New Pine Knot-horn - Dioryctria sylvestrella

Ringed China-mark - Parapoynx stratiotata

Rosy Footman - Miltochrista miniata

Pebble Prominent - Notodonta ziczac

It was interesting to see the slightly different mix of Moths I was getting in Suffolk. The Leopard and Black Arches were both new for me as were the micros, White-foot Bell and New Pine Knot-horn. The Lattice Heath and Straw Underwing I have caught both times I put the trap out in Bawdsey yet I have never managed to catch them back home in my Worthing Garden. Better still there were no Heart and Dart and no Willow Beauty which tend to congregate in numbers around my trap back home.
 

My First Mothing Year

 

The first week in August marked the end of my first full year of mothing or at least the end of my first year trapping in the garden and recording the moths that I see. 

I started the mothing to give myself an extra interest during lockdown. I have a small urban garden close to the sea in Worthing, about three to four kilometres from the nearest countryside as the crow flies. That's probably a lot more as the moth flies so my expectations were not high. I thought perhaps a target of 100 different species  in a year was possible, if I included those I would see whilst out walking on the downs. 

It appears that there are a lot more moths in Worthing than I had expected and my target of 100 species was soon achieved and revised up to 200. I had a bit of a setback during the winter months, adding just five to my list in the first two weeks of November and then nothing until an Early Grey appeared in the trap on the 21st of March. I think the distance from my home to the countryside was beginning to have an impact.

Early Grey - Xylocampa areola

April and May were slow, although I don't think I was alone in finding low numbers in the trap, but with better weather in June and July the numbers began to build again. My cut off date for the year was the 5th of August so I made the most of my last few nights to add a few more to my list.

Ruby Tiger - Phragmatobia fuliginosa

Scarce Silver-lines - Bena bicolorana

Shaded Broad-bar - Scotopteryx chenopodiata

Single-dotted Wave - Idaea dimidiata

Grey Knot-horn - Acrobasis advenella

Ringed China-mark - Parapoynx stratiotata

My total for the year ended up at 236 species with 205 coming from the garden list. The figure of 205 explaining why I needed to fit in a couple of last minute trapping sessions. There are also another ten to fifteen that I have not yet been able to identify so the number may yet creep up by another two or three.

I know numbers and lists don't really matter but I don't think I ever really outgrew the trainspotting phase and keeping lists and having targets adds to the enjoyment.

Talking of targets, 2021 was going to be the year of the clearwings. We purchased the lures, did the research and took the lures out for regular long walks around target areas. This worked for the Emperor Moth but we drew a blank on the clearwings. The closest we got was a comment  from a passing butterflier of "What's that thing on the back of your rucksack with the fluffy tail". Needless to say that by the time I got the rucksack off, the clearwing, if there was one, was nowhere to be seen.

We still have the rest of August when there should be a good chance of finding a Clearwing, that is if it stops raining. However, I have already revised my target for these down to one and I am not really very hopeful of achieving that. It looks as though the lures will be returned to the freezer for the winter with a new plan being worked on for next year.

July Moths

 

We are still in the doldrums as far as birding goes but the compensation is that this is the best time of year for the insects and for me, this year, the moths are the real interest. I have had brief flirtations with bees, hard to photograph, and flies, hard to identify. I even had a year chasing Orchids but I soon got over that one. Moths though will stick. It's butterflies on a much grander scale. There is so much to learn and to discover and you don't have to put up with the dreaded twitch that seems to blight birding.

The rest of the blog is just a selection of some of the moths seen during July. There is nothing special here, just some memories of the joy that nature can bring.

Where better to start than with the Hawkmoths.

Lime Hawkmoth - Mimas tiliae

Privet Hawkmoth - Sphinx ligustri

Small Elephant Hawkmoth - Deilephila porcellus

Elephant Hawk Moth - Deilephila elpenor

A couple of the rarer ones.

Plumed  Fan-foot - Pechipogo plumigeralis

Scarce Purple & Gold - Pyrausta ostrinalis

A few I hadn't seen before

Clay - Mythimna ferrago

White Satin - Leucorna salicis

Pale Pinion - Lithophane hepatica

Dusky Sallow - Eremobia ochroleuca

New for the garden

Swallow-tailed - Ourapteryx sambucaria

Vapourer - Orgyia antiqua

Scalloped Oak - Crocallis elinguaria

Common Footman - Eileme lurideola

Diamond-back Marble - Eudemis profundana

Common Emerald - Hemithea aestivaria

Orange Pine Twist - Lozotaeniodes formosana

Bramble Shoot Moth - Notocelia uddmanniana

Downland Bell - Rhopobota stagnana

Italian Tubic - Metalampra italica

Rosy Tabby - Endotricha flammealis

I have only included one Pug. I think it is a Wormwood but I have real difficulty identifying these moths. Most of the ones I see are badly worn or are the melanistic form and are beyond my skill level.

With a bit more experience I would now label this moth as a Currant Pug Eupithecia assimilata

Wormwood Pug - Euphithecia absinthiata

And a few I have seen before but which I was happy to have back in the trap again. Not every moth is so welcome. Opening the trap to find that it is full of Heart and Darts or worst still Box Tree Moths is disheartening. There can't be much of the Box Tree moths larval food plant left in the area given the numbers I am seeing.

Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing - Noctua fimbriata

L-album Wainscot - Mythimna l-album

Chinese Character - Cilix glaucata

Blair's Mocha - Cyclophora puppillaria

I am coming to the end of my first full year of mothing. The number of species seen has far exceeded my expectations, by how many, I am not sure but the final result will be in a future blog. I still have a few I am hoping to be able to identify before I close the count.