Some Hits and Some Misses - Part 1

Not for the first time, I've fallen rather behind with my nature record keeping. It's difficult keeping up with lots happening and the various distractions of the  World Cup, Wimbledon and the Tour de France.

Where to start?

Well I did do a couple of Large Heath surveys at Muckle Moss near Hadrian's Wall but the first on a windy day produced none and the second in slightly better conditions last Thursday only one definite and one suspected sighting. On the first occasion there was at least a possible sighting of the Manchester Treble Bar moth and there was a plump specimen of the oak eggar moth.

Oak Eggar Moth

It seems the season for Large Heath in the Hadrian's Wall area is pretty much over.  On the way back from the second trip, I made a bit of a detour to Bywell to see if I could find the white-letter hairstreak, only to discover that the tree where I saw it before was completely dead - presumably a victim of Dutch Elm Disease.

There was a similar disappointment a couple of days earlier when I took a bike ride to the Big Waters Reserve to see if the farmland nearby where the clouded yellow turned up was still under set-aside. It wasn't. At least on a fairly brief stay I managed to see two small skipper, a few dragonflies, a red admiral and two small tortoiseshell.

At the weekend I travelled West to link up with V&A and baby.  On the Saturday afternoon we went to Broughtonknowe Wood near Biggar, an impressive and large area of grassland.  I was quickly pleased to note a number of ringlet around. In fact there must have been over a hundred of them, considerably outnumbering meadow brown and all others.  The whites all proved to be green-veined white, a change from the mainly large whites I've been seeing at home.

Ringlet

Green-veined White

There were a couple of small skipper and a large number of burnet moths but bees were largely overshadowed by drone flies. Apart from a couple of azure damselflies, dragonflies weren't settling.

Azure Damselfly	Blotch-winged Hoverfly
Eoseristalis	Furry Dronefly

In the evening we took a walk along the old railway line near Leadhills.  The objective here was a pair of hen harriers with chicks that had been observed by V&A as recently as last Thursday.

As it happened they weren't to be seen and we speculated that they may have left the area - perhaps wisely as this is a known shooting area.

So the main birds we saw perched on posts were a very distant buzzard and a juvenile wheatear.

Buzzard

Wheatear

Oh, and I did catch a view of a grey heron enjoying a scratch.

Heron

Out and About Again!

After my visit to Teesside, I set off again in a Westerly direction on Thursday.

Plan A was to catch up with the fritillaries at Mabie Forest near Dumfries as I had done last year at about this time last year with some success.  

Unfortunately the good weather had already broken in South West Scotland to be replaced by dull and windy conditions so that not a single fritillary was seen. In fact there were hardly any pollinators at all and the only one that appeared regularly was the speckled yellow moth.

Speckled Yellow

We encountered exactly 15 of them all told.

The only other two items of note seen were harder to identify and I was initially only able to find suggested genera.

 

Genus Oedemera?

Genus Orthotaenia?

The only UK representative of the latter genus is the dusky marble moth. which can however be confused with the dark strawberry tortrix so you can take your pick...

However Oedemara Virescens, the false blister beetle, is common in the South of Scotland and so seems a good bet. Anything rather than another 'impossible to say' verdict!

On Friday I returned to England in rather better weather to take part in a course on conducting survey counts near Hadrian's Wall with the Butterfly Conservation "Making Peatlands Work for Lepidoptera" project.

The practical session was a bit of a mixed bag in that we only saw one of our target species - a total of five green hairstreak - in a one hour session. But we did see some interesting things including two bees I was pleased to have definite sightings of.

Unfortunately I was busy changing my hearing aid and only got a quick glimpse of the first one - a moss carder bee, which was thought to be a queen starting a nest on the edge of our marked walk.  I may have seen this on a couple of previous occasions but have not been able to confirm.

In terms of butterflies there were a few small heath (first for me this year) on the borders of the site we were surveying but I was supposed to be counting large heath and duly registered a nil return! A few large butterflies were seen in flight but were thought to be painted ladies. Otherwise we only saw whites in flight and the only one I saw close up was a green-veined white.

On the other hand we did find a couple of caterpillars.

Drinker Moth Caterpillar (underside)

Oak Eggar Moth Caterpillar

Also seen was a nice example of the Silver Y Moth which was captured in a bug box.

Silver Y Moth

However the best for me was the last - a heath bumble bee, which I definitely have never seen before:

Heath Bumble Bee

It was also good to see that numerous peatland flower species were doing well including hare's tail cotton grass, common cotton grass and cross-leaved heath.  There were probably others but plants were not for me a priority for the day.