The Bagsy Blog

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Moth to the Flame - Thunder

At the merest suggestion of perhaps not having enough time to Post more of the weekend's Moth pictures, the weather sets in with sporadic bouts of heavy rain showers and here we are snuggled up in Slight Return II. The very thought of all these 'billions' of creatures procreating all around us and the fact they I am lucky enough to be guided to much of it, turns me to the lyrics of the Led Zeppelin classic, which is tattooed on the back-end of my home,

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars that fill my dream

I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been

To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen

They talk of days for which they sit and wait, and all will be revealed

The World seldom seen in this case is that of the Insects, and while he is much younger I feel Dave will forgive me for the analogy of being the 'Elder' in this instance.

But firstly a quick update.

As ever one of the juvenile

ROBIN

was laying in wait at the Stable Moth Trap despite the heavy downpour,

but later up at the Solar Panel Compound

other things were stirring.

There were no fewer than c7

LITTLE RINGED PLOVER

there this morning

and as can be seen the one above is just slightly more 'advanced'

than the other (what we have been describing as the runt).

Runt or not they are now both undertaking much longer flights

but never far away from the watchful eye of the c2

Parent Birds.

The 'Usurper' is still in attendance, and still trying to win the favours

of the Mother of the Chicks, but in addition there have appeared c2

New Adult Birds.

We still maintain that there is another breeding site close at hand

but stillas yet undiscovered - and of course it's getting late!

Also overlooked in the past week or so are c2 more juvenile

LAPWING

which are in close attendance with the previously discovered c2

unless this is a creche? Comments please.

LAPWING CLIPS

SO DOWN TO THE NITTY GRITTY
complete with introductory track 'remastered' by
Thunder in 2005.
Moth to the Flame Link

Like all life forms it is often unbelievable that

THESE

can turn into

THIS

FOX MOTH

and many of his kind. These eggs were found in one of the traps but

all others contained herein were found by Dave Foot.

LEOPARD MOTH

and one day this LARVAE

will develope into a

BROAD-BORDERED BEE HAWK-MOTH

FESTOON

PEACH BLOSSOM

LEAST CARPET

BUFF ARCHES

SATIN WAVE

BORDERED BEAUTY

DWARF CREAM WAVE

SWALLOW-TAILED MOTH

The Migrant
GEM

JULY HIGHFLYER

SCALLOP SHELL

This big bruiser is a

LOBSTER MOTH

CREAM-BORDERED GREEN PEA

Up until this weekend Janet was the only person around here ever
to have captured

BUTTONED SNOUT
a 'hibernator' which flew from firewood on
16 February 2014. It was a quick sprint (woo, feel a little faint) over
to Harbins kitchen to redress the deficit.

LARVAE
on

the food plant
BELL HEATHER
of

BEAUTIFUL YELLOW UNDERWING

which is also a most 'tiny' creature.

FANFOOT

It is doubtful that those before us who 'named' these Insects visited the dictionary, flipped open a page wrote down the first word they noticed, coupled it with Moth and that was that. However, like many of the inquisitive among us it is often wondered just how these names derive. Over the weekend we caught quite a number of these and at one point it was noticed that they have a relatively large 'paddle' (Fan) at the outer end of the forelegs. This Dave pointed out is from where the name derived. Just to divert for a moment and share a similar experience many years before while visiting the Portland Bird Observatory I ventured to ask how my personal favourite Moth name came about?

HEBREW CHARACTER
(not caught over the weekend and not my favoured Moth name)
likely originating from the Yiddish letter 'chaf' כ

it also forms part of my favoured name

SETACEOUS HEBREW CHARACTER

'setaceous' meaning 'bristle-like or shape.

MOTTLED RUSTIC

SILKY WAINSCOT

EAR MOTH

SMALL DOTTED BUFF

SUSPECTED

DINGY SHEARS

GREY ARCHES

an omission from yesterday's Post was another
First for our Recording Area

BROOM MOTH

The family Wainscot can be confusing as on first inspection they
all look the same! No matter how many inspections I undertake,
they all look the same, so was chuffed to have correctly ID'ed these two.

STRIPED WAINSCOT

and

SOUTHERN WAINSCOT
and so not to leave the
MICROS
out, this little beauty is

PYRAUSTA PURPURALIS
the Norfolf Moth Website also tells me it has a vernacular name of

COMMON PURPLE and GOLD

While movin' through Kashmir - Link

From the "we'll never, ever play together at the O2 Arena in 2005
which in my humble opinion is

THE DEFINITIVE
rendition of this magical composition.

Note:- Bonzo's nipper Jason on the drum stool (as good as his dad?).

Cor, watching that again has made me go all Solar Plexus!
Reminds me of the Best 60th Birthday I ever had and generated a few memories.
It's some friend who takes you to

LYON
for your 60th Birthday,

buys you a couple of Beers

then pretends he's going somewhere else but takes you to the

Théâtres Antiques de Fourvière

to see the startling

STRANGE SENSATION
fronted by
Robert Plant

The sky was Bible black in Lyon
When I met the Magdalene
She was paralyzed in a streetlight
She refused to give her name
And a ring of violet bruises
They were pinned upon her arm.
Two hundred francs for sanctuary and she led me by the hand
To a room of dancing shadows where all the heartache disappears
And from glowing tongues of candles I heard her whisper in my ear
"'J'entend ton coeur"
I can hear your heart
Finds you a young Fräulein (that's what they call them in France)
and then one for himself

The Lyon Flower Lady

and a nice bottle of Mineral Water before going home.
In respect of the man who first introduced himself to me thus
"I'm Surgeon Commander Pickle RN, VD and Scar but you can call me Branston"
I've been in a Pickle ever since
here's to you and Er Indoors Skinny Kid
I'm now going to have a drop of that 'red' Swearing Juice
you used to force me to drink out of that big 'bowl glass'

Slàinte Mhath
to ALL our readers especially Daryl and Cath who it seems have been playing
Mummies and Daddies
CONGRATULATIONS!
Memories are Made of This
see what happens when you mention Zeppelin?

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Tigermoth - Steve Hackett

A jaunty little lullaby to accompany you though our latest offering.

Tigermoth Link from Hackett's third album Spectral Mornings

It has been wall to wall Moths all over the weekend and it will be of little surprise to hear that most of it was shared with our friend

DAVE FOOT

Before his arrival there was a quick look for the pair of

LITTLE OWL

which are still both on station

and looking well.

At 23:45 on Friday there started one of the most furious Thunder Storms in recent years, which included torrential rain and at one point HAIL! Good job then that we had left the Rain Guards off of half of the traps

with the irony being that those 3 were 'dry as a bone' next morning while the others, which I have to admit as being MINE, required a Ballast Pump to recover the Insects. Despite the weather overall the Collective Haul was a huge success with with 540 Macros being taken at Merritown Heath of 109 Species, while PCF produced 344 Macros to 75 Species. As might be imagines there were 'hundreds' of photographs taken over our 2 day hunt, which are still needing some attention, so for now we will just bring you the most interesting ones which were all additions to the

Parley Court Farm Macro Moth List.

Dave spent the latter hours of Saturday and the first two of Sunday searching for Moth Larvae, so was up a little later than myself but meeting up at 05:30 there was something a little special awaiting him. I had done the rounds to turn off the traps and finding en-route 3 species clinging to the Horse Stable wall. The first to be seen was too high up to reach while the others were readily identified as Barred Straw and the Macro Small Magpie. The stool used to mount the horses (not by me I hasten to add) was utilised and the 'stranger' was captured and I even surprised myself by identifying it before Dave's arrival.