Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
THERE WERE at least half a dozen Large Yellow Underwings in the moth trap this morning plus some of their smaller relatives but this is the first time that I’ve seen the Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, Notcua fimbriata. This is a male; the female is paler.
It’s more typical of wooded areas than gardens but as the foodplants of its larvae include docks, nettles, brambles, sallows and willows it’s not surprising that it has turned up here.
Although it’s years since I last saw a Silver Y moth, Autographa gamma, I didn’t have any difficulty in putting a name to it, thanks to the conspicuous calligraphic Y on its wing. This is the first time that it has turned up in
the moth trap and that could be because, as an immigrant each year to Britain, it has taken until now to reach Yorkshire.
There are so many brownish, streaked little moths, both micro and macro, that I find drawing them gives me my best chance of picking out the pattern as I look through the field guide. Taking a close look at this, I noticed that the two bands and the inconspicuous dot made a pattern like a carnival mask, enabling me to identify it as the Dun-bar, Cosmia trapezina, a common moth from lowland Scotland southwards, wherever there are trees.
While I sketched these moths Barbara went through the book and came up with a name for this obscure-looking delta-winged little moth. It’s the Fan-foot, Zanclognatha tarsipennalis, a common moth of woods, hedges and gardens.
The the three lines on its wing are;
with a row of fine dashes along the edge of the wing.
Lets have an easier moth; the male of the Orange Swift, Hepialus sylvina, has a bright orange-brown forewing. It’s larvae feed on herbceous plants including dock, dandelion and bracken.
These two underwings are so regular in the moth trap that I tend to ignore them so that I thought it was about time that I made a quick sketch of them.
I’VE FOUND some striking looking moths in the light trap in recent weeks but I thought that it was time to turn my attention to the commoner but obscure species that I generally ignore.
I’ve been thinking of this moth as a ‘clay’, as it resembles a variable little moth called the ingrailed clay but there are probably a dozen other noctuid moths in the field guide that are possibilities.
Drawing it from one of the photographs I took is my attempt to take in its markings; most prominent of which, or should I say the least obscure, are the kidney-shaped marking and the adjacent oval on each of its forewings but most noctuid moths have these.
As usual, any suggestions as to its identity would be very welcome.
THE FIRST THING that struck me when I saw this moth in the light trap was the tracery on its wings. Now that I know it is the gothic, Naenia typica, I can see that it resembles the patterns found in the stained glass windows of gothic cathedrals. Its relative the Bordered Gothic dispenses with the pointed tops to the arches and has more of an Art Nouveau look, as if it had been designed by Aubrey Beardsley rather than Hugh of Lincoln or Bram Stoker.
The larvae feed on a range of wild and cultivated plants including willowherb, cleavers, comfrey and sallow.
I KEPT THINKING of the patterns on sea-shells as I drew this moth, the mother of pearl, Pleuroptya ruralis. At 15-17 mm, three-quarters of an inch, it’s no midget but it’s classified as a micro-moth, one of the Crambidae, a group which also includes grass-moths, china-marks and the small magpie.
You might disturb the mother of pearl in daylight in a nettle patch. Its green larva rolls a nettle leaf for protection. Its larvae will also feed on elms.
Caught in the moth trap 21-22 July.
AT FIRST GLANCE you might think ‘butterfly’ as the Early Thorn, Selenia dentaria, is the only Thorn moth to hold its wings up in butterfly fashion.
You might be thinking that late July doesn’t qualify as ‘Early’ but this is a female of the second generation, which usually has a larger tawny orange patch on its underwing than the February to May generation.
As the name suggests, she might well be looking for a blackthorn or hawthorn to lay her eggs on, there are plenty in the immediate vicinity, but the larvae will also feed on birch, alder, honeysuckle, sallow or bog-myrtle. They’re common in a wide variety of habitats including gardens, hedges and woods so they should feel at home here.
THIS IS the moth trap that I’ve been using. It’s built from a design that you can find in the Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies Beginners Guide to Moth Trapping, which is available as a PDF from the Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies website. It slots together so it’s easy to dismantle for storage.
I bought the black light UV bulb in September, intending to have the trap ready for the moths of early autumn but by Christmas I still hadn’t made a start on it so I’m grateful to my friend David Stubbs of Solway Dory who made this for me in his workshop.
He made one modification to the design which isn’t essential but which I’ve found helpful; the original design is apparently open to the ground so he added a plywood base that rests on batons of 1×1 inch timber glued around the bottom edges of the trap. This is useful on a summer morning when I need to move the trap into the shade to deal with later.
A further improvement that I have in mind: I’m checking in charity shops to see if I can find a suitable heatproof glass container, such as a large cafetière, to cover the bulb so that if there’s a shower during the night it will be protected.
I didn’t want to run the cable out of a window so I had an outdoor electrical socket with a circuit breaker fitted on the back wall of the house, which is a useful thing to have anyway.
A couple of friends who’ve had experience of moth-trapping recommended that I start with a UV lamp rather than the more powerful mercury vapour. Apart from potentially annoying the neighbours in a back garden location like mine, the mercury vapour brings in so many moths from such a wide area that it can be daunting for the beginner to deal with quantity and variety of species caught.
My friend Tim Freed who does moth surveys sometimes runs three traps simultaneously but he stops up all night going from one to the other logging the catch.
I’m happier to be dealing with much smaller samples of the local moth population but I hope that I’ll be able to keep this up through the seasons and gradually get an impression of the bigger picture.
I’ve got a number of moth books but I think the essentials are Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul Waring and Martin Townsend and Field Guide to the Micro Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Phil Sterling and Mark Parsons. Both are illustrated by Richard Lewington.
Moths are so variable that its helpful to check out other books and to Google the species and conjure up dozens of images of it.
THIS SMALL moth, black arches, appears to be disguised as a bird dropping or a dried crust of lichen. Like most moths, it holds itself flat against the surface that it is resting on so that its outline would blend seamlessly with a similar background.
The large yellow underwing seems to have gone to a lot of effort in the design of its veins, tufts, random blemishes and high ‘collar’ to give itself a resemblance to a dry, dead leaf. It sat tight the whole time that I was drawing it so I didn’t get to see it flash its hindwings.
A restless little moth flies around in the container that I’ve put it in. It looks like a smaller, less distinct version of the double square-spot moths that often turn up in the moth trap.
Its slightly smaller companion in the container isn’t so restless. This little moth has a double-wave pattern on its wings.
The nearest thing that I can see in the book in a pine processionary but we’re nearer to broadleaved woodland so I think that is unlikely.
Finally another small moth and the least distinct in this batch. Whenever a moth like this turns up I’m tempted to call it an ingrailed clay as that species is so varied in size and pattern, but there are a lot of similar looking moths. It’s evidently a design classic, one that ensures the moth’s survival.
Also caught in the trap this morning: peppered moth (light form as always), flame, heart and dart, double square-spot, shoulder-striped wainscot and a second large yellow underwing which did show its colourful hindwings as it flew away.
AMONGST THE usual suspects – peppered, ‘clay’, footman, heart and dart – rounded up in the moth trap this morning there’s a new and, as a change from all those little brown jobs, a suitably distinctive looking moth. I sketch it several times to take in the appearance of it.
Those swirls at the ends of its forewings remind me of knots in wood. It’s the pebble prominent, Notodonta ziczac, the ‘pebble’ being the light brown area rather than the swirl. It’s a common and widespread moth of mature woodland, hedges and gardens; habitats that Coxley Valley has a plentiful supply of.
ANOTHER GOOD NIGHT for moths but a busy day for me so these sketches are as far as I got with identifying some of the catch.
The most striking insect this morning was this black beetle which was well over an inch long but seemed bigger. I’d love to have time to draw these creatures but I knew that I’d have to be quick to get even this snapshot because I’d seen one just like it in the trap first thing yesterday morning and by the time I’d had breakfast and come out to sort through the catch it had disappeared. Presumably it had managed to clamber out through the narrow opening.
A slightly better record of another beetle that had blundered into the trap yesterday but which was still there when I emptied the trap because it still had last night’s takeaway with it; a fragment of earthworm. As the trap is boxed in, I assume that it had been flying with it. This is a – I guess – a rose chafer or a close relative of it.
It would normally keep its wings neatly folded beneath its elytra (wing-cases, that are modified forewings). In the rose chafer these have a coppery red sheen when seen from certain angles.