Mothing at Sandwich Bay - Part 2 the Moths

Not a Moth or a Flower but Nigel Jarman, one of the Bockhill gang and provider of the moth photos below. Nigel took these pictures early this morning and released the moths back in their habitat afterwards. He normally looks a bit more awake but he'd had a hard week and it was getting towards his bedtime.

The Oblique Striped is a subtly marked moth that sits like a small butterfly when at rest. It has a wing span of about 22-25mm and occurs locally in coastal areas in the south and in Breckland in East Anglia.

When it opens it wings the "oblique stripe" becomes obvious. the food plant for the larvae is Lady's Bedstraw so it was well catered for here.

The Rest Harrow is another Geometer and is a little larger than the Oblique Striped with a wing span of about 30mm. It is closely related to the "Emeralds" and is the only one in this sub-family not green. It is locally distributed in coastal areas of the south and south-east of England, and occasionally appears elsewhere as a suspected migrant. As the name suggests, the larval food-plant is Restharrow.

another new moth for me was this Water Ermine. A scarce and local species, occurring mainly in the south-east of England and occupying damp localities. rather like a White Ermine but with fewer spots. This was caught near the reeds by the observatory.

Mothing at Sandwich Bay - Part 1 People and Flowers

Last night there was Mothcount Event at Sandwich Bay. First Sean Clancy led a small group of us along the side of the golf course to look of three of the locally found moth species.

We were looking for Rest Harrow, Oblique Striped and Bright wave, we found 20+ of the first, two of the second but none of the last.

As well as the moth, which I will blog about later, we also were treated to some great views of the flora. One of the more fascinating families are the Broomrapes. This one is Bedstraw or Clove Scented Broomrape. Broomrapes are parasitic and they lack chlorophyll and hence any green colouration, and their leaves are vestigial. Most species are highly host-specific, sometimes restricted to a single host species or genus. This species is a parasite of bedstraw Galium species, especially Lady's Bedstraw (G. verum) and has a strong scent of cloves. In the UK it is only found on the East Kent Coast.

Pyramidal Orchids are numerous here and although they are a common species they are still a magnificent site.

Much less common nationally is the Lizard Orchid, but here there are some great specimens, and as it was getting dull in the evening light there scent, a sort of "animal house in the zoo" smell came through.

As darkness fell we returned to the observatory and six moth traps were set up. When I've got the full list of what was caught I'll post a summary.

Alouette, gentille Alouette,

One of the joys of living so close to open farm land is that at any time of the year that Skylarks sing we can hear them from the garden. However we don't normally see then unless they are flying over. Today, I had a drive, my quarantine is over and I can drive. The wind was so strong that I could find none of the butterflies I was looking for and any flowers I found were dancing much too much in the wind to take and photos. As I was passing through the stubble fields along Pond Lane I watched two Skylarks fly in and land near the road.

I manoeuvred my portable hide to a suitable position and scanned through the field. Luckily the road has almost no traffic and my car caused no hold ups. The nearest Lark lifted it's head and my auto-focus demonstrated how difficult it can be to focus on a small brown bird in a brown field.

I'm not sure if it could hear the shutter noise or whether there genuinely was a nearby threat, but the bird kept squatting down in the corn stems as if it was hiding. As I drove off I couldn't help the old song running through my head:

Alouette, gentille Alouette,
Alouette je te plumerai,

roughly translated- Lark, lovely lark,
Lark I'm going to pluck you............................

I wont go on, a children's song about plucking a lark, well you could still buy Thrush Pate a few years ago in Provence (you might still be able to) so I shouldn't be surprised.

Roadside Orchids

Roadside verges are often fantastic areas for wild flowers, provided that they are looked after properly.

One such haven for wildlife can be found along Upper Road, between the Radar Station and the White Cliffs car park. I had a walk along this stretch this evening, the road is narrow so you have to keep an eye on the traffic as the road can be quite busy.

We had driven passed the other day and I'd noticed quite a few orchids on the bank. Today was a bit dull and the wind was blowing quite hard, not ideal for taking photos, but I did take a few. This is one of the bigger spikes of Common Spotted Orchid, which are numerous along this chalk bank. The flowers are quite densely packed and vary from almost white to quite dark purple.

Fragrant Orchids are also numerous along the road, the spikes are much less tightly packed and the individual flowers have a long slender spur, and of course they are indeed fragrant.

Flying to the moon?

Tonight the weather forecast is for clear skies. There is a full moon and the clear sky will mean that the temperature will drop to about 11 or 12 deg C, and the wind is also picking up. All these things combined will probably mean that there will be very few moths in the moth traps tomorrow morning. I guess that the relationship with the cold temperature is obvious, after all butterflies are less easy to see in cold weather, all insects need warmth to get the energy to fly. However the link with the moon is less clear. Why do moth fly towards lights or fires? First there's phototaxis, this is an organisms automatic movement towards, or away from light. Cockroaches are negative phototactic animals whereas moths are positively phototactic. Some moths are migratory and it s thought that they use the features of the sky to navigate. Many lepidopterists suggest that moths use the moon as a primary reference point and can actually calibrate their flights by it. There is even evidence that moths have an internal magnetic detector to help them navigate. So a moth's attraction to an artificial light or to a fire could be related to orientation, and lead to disorientation -- the moth wasn't "expecting" to actually get to "the moon" (the light source) or to be able to fly above it, so confusion results. Moths are more sensitive to some wavelengths of light, ultraviolet, for example, than they are to others. A white light will attract more moths than a yellow light. Different sorts of bulbs in moth traps seem to have different successes on different nights, but so far I've not found any consistency in which moths go to which lights.

The Village feeling.

A circular walk to the Village Shop had me wandering down Chapel Lane and passed the pond.

I've always thought that with this view down Chapel Lane you could imagine that time had stood still for decades (at least if there wasn't a car parked at the bottom). The attractive cottages and the village pond give that timeless feeling that has disappeared from other areas.

I wonder what will happen to Groves Cottage. This has stood empty since Win Ross sadly passed away. I guess that an old property like this would be difficult to bring up to modern standards, but I hope any replacement will be in keeping with the area.

I noticed this accumulation of aphids on the stem of a teasel, a sight enough t0 get any gardener reaching for a spray (soapy water please). They form a large proportion of the food of many other species, Common Swifts, that feed on the wing often very high in the air, collect hundreds of aphids as well as air borne spiders in the food balls they bring back to their young.

Ladybird larvae are also predators of aphids, unfortunately this one is the larva of a Harlequin Ladybird and is a voracious killer of other ladybird larvae and now it has become naturalised it is spreading fast.

A walk on the wild side

As it was a nice afternoon I decided to try a little perambulation along Kingsdown Road. With the aid of Google Earth, I calculated that I managed about a mile and a half. Just beyond the village the road becomes virtually traffic free, except for access and the occasional bicycle, so it is a very peaceful walk.

The verges on each side of the road are full of wild flowers and all sorts of goodies. This small snail caught my eye. It is the banded form of the Brown Lipped Banded Snail. With a name like that you would think that they are all banded, but no, there's a plain form as well, and I did see some of these and at the time thought that they might be a different species.

While I was looking at the snails I noticed this moth at rest. Moths are usually thought of as creatures of the night, but many fly and can be seen during the day time. This is one that I do sometimes catch in a moth trap, it's a Silver Ground Carpet, but a rather tatty one.

This Hover-fly was in the same area. It is quite distinctive with the second black cross line on the 3rd and 4th segments. As usual it doesn't have a common name and is known as Episyrphus balteatus

In the paddocks opposite Little Banks, there were a couple of Mares with foals, and I thought that this was an irresistible picture.

Once I reached the top of Old Stairs Hill I decided to leave the descent to the distant cyclist in front of me, and turned round, partly because I'd come far enough and also because the rain was just beginning to gentle spit. From here I could hear two Yellowhammers singing, and as far as I could make out neither was quite sure if it wanted cheese or not.

Reaching the horse paddocks again I could hear the rather strange creaky call of the Grey Partridge. Often they fly as soon as they see movement, but these two, one head is just poking out of the grass, stayed around while I watched them from a gate.

As I approached home I heard the characteristic tapping of a Song Thrush breaking open a snail, In this case a Garden Snail. It was using the pavement, and judging by the number of broken shells in the area it had found itself a good supply of food. It wasn't far from our garden, and I did have a quiet word, as I passed, suggesting that a bit of pest control at "The Hidden House" would be useful.