Grey Dagger Caterpillar

My sharp-eyed youngest son spotted this colourful caterpillar in the corkscrew willow tree. It is the caterpillar of the Grey Dagger moth (Acronicta psi, #611). I’ve caught adults in the moth trap, which are virtually indistinguishable from the rarer Dark Dagger moth, but the caterpillars of the two species are quite different. Grey Dagger caterpillars are found on a variety of deciduous trees, such as Oak, Birch, Hawthorn, Elm and seemingly Willow too.

#611 Grey Dagger (Acronicta psi) caterpillar

September Moths

After a bit of a break during the holidays, it was good to get my moth trap back out and see what was about. Among the Large Yellow Underwings there were a few new species. This Black Rustic and a couple of prettily veined Lunar Underwings were my favourites. I nearly missed the Small Dusty Wave altogether as it is more or less perfectly camouflaged against egg box grey.

#683 Black Rustic - Aporophyla nigra

#682 Square-spot Rustic - Xestia xanthographa

#685 Lunar Underwing - Omphaloscelis lunosa

#688 Pale Mottled Willow - Caradrina clavipalpis

#684 Garden Rose - Tortrix Acleris variegana

#92 Small Dusty Wave - Idaea seriata

Half Moon Caddisfly

This delicately marked caddis fly came into the moth trap last night. Limnephilus lunatus is identified from a few similar looking species by the golden half-moon at the end of its wings. This is only the second species of caddisfly I’ve recorded in the garden. It is a common and widespread species in UK, whose larvae can be found in most freshwater and even brackish water habitats. The larvae live for a year in the water in a case constructed from plant or mineral debris and the adults fly from April through to November.

#686 Limnephilus lunatus

Soomaa National Park, Estonia

We were lucky enough to get away during August to Latvia and Estonia, for a wonderful break. Nature took a bit of a back seat to the beaches and medieval cities, but we did visit the Soomaa National Park in Southern Estonia. This park is huge; a matrix of forests and meadows centred around a massive raised bog - one of the biggest in Europe. The forest was quite silent in this season, but somehow the wet day (our only one of the holiday!) brought out the best in the forest fungi and bog plants.

Wasp Mimic Hoverfly

This hoverfly caught visiting the Golden Rod is rather big and impressive. It’s a wasp-mimicking hoverfly, Volucella inanis (#681), which is a parasite on wasps, laying its eggs in the wasps nest where its larvae eat the wasp’s own larvae. This species is found across the South of England up to Midlands, and seems not so common though increasing its population in UK. A fine addition to the list.

#681 Volucella inanis

Common Furrow Bee (Lasioglossum calceatum)

There were several of these bees on the Golden Rod, some individuals like this one showing a lot of red on the body, others completely dark. Looking into it, I believe these are Common Furrow Bee (Lasioglossum calceatum, #679). The males show variable amounts of red like this, while the females lack red colouration. These are ground nesting solitary bees, which are usually found in small colonies in short turf or other sunny areas of open ground .

Moth Bonanza

It’s taken me a few days to identify all the moths I caught on Friday night, with 15 new species added to the list. There were many moths in the trap and even more all around on the house wall and surrounding plants. Some of the highlights below. Without the moth trap you only see a fraction of what is out there.

#666 Magpie moth - Abraxas grossulariata

#236 Garden Carpet - Xanthorhoe fluctuata

#667 Lesser Swallow Prominent - Pheosia gnoma

#674 Carcina quercana

#245 Yellow-tail - Euproctis similis

#675 Water Veneer - Acentria ephemerella

#546 Ruby Tiger Moth - Phragmatobia fuliginosa

#673 Iron Prominent - Notodonta dromedarius

#671 Nutmeg - Anarta trifolii

#664 Lesser BB Yellow Underwing - Noctua janthe

#672 Straw Underwing - Thalpophila matura

#676 The Coronet - Craniophora ligustri

Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis, #677)

The Golden Rod is in full flower, and as always is attracting a lot of insects. I can’t say I like the plant so much, but the flowers are really attractive to a big diversity of flies, hoverflies, bees and wasps. In this case though the new species is a Nursery Web Spider making its web up in the flowers. The female of these spiders carries the eggs around with her until they are ready to hatch, when she creates a web for the young spiders to stay in until they are ready to disperse.

The other insect is a solitary wasp of some sort. there are a whole lot of species of mason wasps and ground living wasps with this basic colouration, and identification is not easy.

#677 Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis)

Solitary Wasp

Moth Trapping in Winchcombe

For a change last night I was trapping in my Dad’s garden in Winchcombe. He’s always reminiscing about how many more insects there were back in the old days, and he’s for sure correct. Even so it was great to catch a pretty decent selection of moths, several that i didn’t yet catch at my place. I took some photos of a few of the more colourful ones and ones I didn’t recognise, including a Marbled Green (Nyctobrya muralis) which seems pretty unusual this far from the coast. A rather impressive Sexton Beetle had dropped into the trap; this is a carrion beetle that searches out dead small animals and raises its larvae in a burrow under the corpse.

Flame Shoulder (Ochropleura plecta)

Gold Spot (Plusia festucae)

Maiden's Blush (Cyclophora punctaria)

Marbled Green (Cryphia muralis)

Sallow Kitten (Furcula furcula)

Common Sexton Beetle (Nicrophorus vespilloides)

Poplar Hawk-moth - Laothoe populi (#663)

Among a whole bunch of moths, which are going to take me a while to sort out, this amazing Poplar Hawk-moth (Laothoe populi). The main flying season is May-July, so this one is a little late, or maybe it’s from a second generation. This hawk-moth is one of the commonest in UK, but very spectacular.

Poplar Hawk-moth (Laothoe populi, #663)

Five New Moths

Monday night was my best night’s trapping for quite some time, including five new species. The Brimstone Moth was not new, but the light drew in several of these and I didn’t get a photo the previous time I recorded them. Scalloped Oak, Single-dotted Wave, Shuttle-shaped Dart, Straw Underwing and Turnip Moth were all new, reflecting a shift in the season and new generations of these moths appearing. I caught several Shuttle-shape Darts, Straw Underwings and also Riband Waves, plus individuals of several other species.

#657 Scalloped Oak (Crocallis elinguaria)

#606 Brimstone Moth (Opisthograptis luteolata)

#658 Single-dotted Wave (Idaea dimidiata)

#659 Shuttle-shaped Dart (Agrotis puta)

#660 Straw Underwing (Thalpophila matura)

#661 Turnip Moth (Agrotis segetum)

Weekend Finds

Two new species this weekend. The small shield bug, about the size of a ladybird, is a Woundwort Shieldbug (Eysarcoris venustissimus, #655) found on Hedge Woundwort which grows as a weed quite plentifully around the garden. The fly Suillia variegata (#656) is usually found around decaying stuff; it’s wings are often more marked than this with a black bar and white tips, but the markings are there on some photos, as are the hairs on the wing edge that distinguish this family of flies (Heleomyzidae ).

#655 Woundwort Shieldbug (Eysarcoris venustissimus)

#656 Suillia variegata

A Pair of Beauties

Here’s a nice pair of “beautiful” micro moths. On the left a Marbled Beauty (Bryophila domestica, #652), caught last week in the moth trap. This species is camouflaged to hide up on a lichen covered wall;its caterpillars are lichenivores, feeding on lichens, usually on rocks. On the right a Beautiful Plume Moth (Amblyptilia acanthadactyla, #222) that appeared from some garden waste I was clearing out.

#652 Marbled Beauty (Bryophila domestica)

#222 Beautiful Plume Moth (Amblyptilia acanthadactyla)

Large Rose Sawflies

Large Rose Sawfly (Arge pagana) has two, sometimes three generations in each summer - these two are presumably getting busy making the second generation. The sawflies like our Dog Rose, and there are often a few caterpillars there. The female lays her eggs into the fine stems at the outside of the bush, using her saw-like ovipositor. The caterpillar hatch together and as a family group set about eating all the leaves in the area.

Band-Eyed Brown Horsefly - Tabanus bromius (#654)

I risked life and limb hanging out of my upstairs window to snap this blood-sucking horsefly that landed on the outside of the glass. It is a Band-Eyed Brown Horsefly (Tabanus bromius), in this case a female with its rather amazingly patterned eyes. You have to wonder if this banding on the eye serves any purpose, or is just decorative. It’s the female horseflies that bite, in order to get blood. Usually they go for cows or horses, but sometimes also people. Band-eyed Brown Horsefly is common in the southern part of UK, but rarely found North of the Midlands.

Common Shrew (Sorex araneus, #653)

I apprehended the cat following this shrew across the lawn, presumably having just caught it somewhere nearby. It’s a Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) and my first garden shrew. It is identified as Common rather than Pygmy Shrew by the thin, hairless tail and by the brown flanks sandwiched between its dark back and pale belly. Shrews secrete an unpleasant tasting fluid from their skin, which makes them less appetising to predators, and especially pampered cats,, so this one was relatively unhurt.

Southern Hawker

This Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea, #261) was caught by the cat, but I think its wings were already damaged or not fully developed. I released it alive, and as it is beautiful and I don’t get many dragonflies, I hope it survives. This species does live in small garden ponds, but also flies quite far afield. It’s a common dragonfly in Southern & Central England & Wales.

Eupeodes latifasciatus (#651)

A couple of more interesting hoverflies this week. Eupeodes latifasciatus (#651), this one a male caught sunbathing, is a new species for the garden. It took me a bit of time to get the identification as there are a few similar-looking hoverflies, but the pattern of yellow marks fused into bands and that close in at the lateral margin indicate this species.

The stocky hoverfly on the right is Myathropa florea (Deadhead Hoverfly, #324), which is an impressively marked species that doesn’t turn up often in the garden. I also saw one of the big hoverflies, maybe Volucella zonaria, quickly fly into the buddleia and then away - so I’ll be looking out for that over the next days.

#651 Eupeodes latifasciatus

#324 Deadhead Hoverfly (Myathropa florea)

Lesser Waterboatman (Sigara lateralis, #646)

Another first, this time my first Waterboatmen, with a dozen or more caught in the moth trap. Looking like something from Roswell, these bugs (not beetles) are strong fliers and often attracted to light at night. There are several similar species, but based on pattern and leg/foot colour, I believe this one is Sigara lateralis. I released them in my small pond - may they be happy there!

The moth is a rather faded Double Square Spot, the first of these I’ve caught. Apart from a coupe of Large Yellow Underwings and an unidentified brown Caddisfly there wasn’t much else in the trap.

#646 Lesser Waterboatman (Sigara lateralis)

#645 Double Square-spot (Xestia triangulum)

Pests on my Veg Seedlings

Spectacular damage in the space of a few days to my Mizuna (Japanese mustard greens) and Swede seedlings. The final picture, of a Small White Butterfly caterpillar, was taken on 5th July and the first photo of the same leaves, devastated by flea beetles, on 16 July. Partaking in the feeding frenzy, four species of Brassica pest, all new to the list.

The main culprits were tiny black Cabbage-stem Flea Beetles (Psylliodes chrysocephala, #649) that eat little holes in the leaves of many types of Brassica. I also found one Lesser Striped Flea Beetle (Phyllotreta undulata, #647), with a cream-coloured stripe on its flanks. Both the Swede and Mizuna plants also had an infestation of Cabbage Stem Weevils (Ceutorhynchus pallidactylus, #468). The final pest, just on the Swede plants, was Mealy Cabbage Aphid (Brevicoryne brassicae, #650), with this winged adult, but also a fair few green coloured wingless immature aphids on the undersides of the leaves.

Flea Beetle Damage

#649 Cabbage-stem Flea Beetle (Psylliodes chrysocephala)

#647 Lesser striped flea beetle (Phyllotreta undulata)

#648 Cabbage Stem Weevil (Ceutorhynchus pallidactylus)

#650 Mealy cabbage aphid (Brevicoryne brassicae)

#8 Small White (Pieris rapae)