Sunday 18 May 2008

Ready for some visitors

Most of the welcoming party is ready but the guests haven't arrived yet. I have seen various appeals for records of migrant butterflies and moths, Painted Ladies and Hummingbird Hawkmoths being the best known. I've got most of the plants ready. The Echiums are out and full of bees and other insects.
The Red Valarian is starting to come out, and this is normally a major draw for butterflies and moths.
The heavily scented Honeysuckle is another great attraction, but what do I get.
Setaceous Hebrew Character, a common moth, but the second earliest I've recorded, but not a migrant from across the sea.
Heart and Dart, another common moth, distinguished by the black across the head. With the weather forecast for NE winds for the nest few day I expect that my mothing will remain unexciting.

Birds Two Siskins are still coming to the garden feeders and the noise of the young Great Tits must mean that they are not long for fledging. Pam took me out for a pint at the Coastguards this evening and I picked up my binoculars to watch a group of passing Cormorants, and was surprised to see three Cormorants with a single Brent Goose, that was behaving as if it thought it was one of them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, I'm just getting into moths and was wondering what sort of trap you use? and where did you get it from? I hope you can help.
Josh
www.josh-birdbrain.blogspot.com

Tony Morris said...

Hi Josh, I did a bit about traps last year:
http://stmargaretsphotodiary.blogspot.com/2007/06/moth-traps.html

Mine are all home made but I put some references there to useful sites, if you want more details e-mail me direct with any questions.
Tony

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much for the help! I think I might set about building one at the week-end!
Thanks
Josh

Daniel Chérouvrier said...

The Red Valerian seems to be what is called here "Spanish lilac" , "False Valerian" or "Wall Valerian".
I do like this plant.