28 May 2012 - Blairgowrie, Perthshire

Another good garden catch...

Garden Carpet

Glaucous Shears

Glaucous Shears (below) & Knotgrass (above)



Lunar Thorn

Small Angle Shades

Tawney-barred Angle

28 May 2012 - nr Struan, Perthshire

A visit out this morning produced about 40 Common Heaths - much as I tried to find rarer macro-dayflying moffs, I couldn't. Still, these were nice moths to catch up with.

Common heath

 

Common Heath

26 May 2012 - Blairgowrie, Perthshire

First night up in Scotland produced a modest catch. Most interesting for me was a couple of Scarce Black Arches - a species I hadn't seen before.

Scarce Black Arches

Scarce Black Arches





Beautiful Golden-Y

Scorched Wing

Yellow-barred Brindle

Light Brocade

Brown rustic

Brimstone Moth

22 May 2012 - Benson Lane, Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxon

A lunchtime mooch round the grounds at work produced this lovely wee Small Yellow Underwing. The size was micro-moth rather than macro-moth - but ceratinly a fine addition to the macro moth list of CEH.

Thankfully news of the find eventually got to Biodiversity colleagues, who managed to relocate the wee beastie an hour or two later - phew!

Small Yellow Underwing

22 May 2012 - Neptune Wood, Oxon

A trip to Neptune Wood near Little Wittenham produced nearly 200 macros of 35 spp. A nice selection - and just nice to be out between rain shows...

Pale Tussock

Silver-ground Carpet

Dwarf Pug ?

Dwarf Pug?

Light Brocade

Marbled Minor

 

Chocolate Tip

Yellow-barred Brindle

Coronet

Peppered Moth

Beetle spp

Treble-line

19 May 2012 - Warburgh Reserve, Oxon

An opportunistic catch at the Warburg Reserve was really productive even if numbers were a little low. Amongst five species of prominent was a fine Great Prominent. Marbled Brown was also new, whilst catching both Treblebar and Lesser Treblebar provided a great opportunity to photograph the two species side-by-side.





Great Prominent



Great Prominent

Marbled Brown

Marbled Brown

 

Lesser  Treblebar

Lesser Treblebar (above) & Treblebar (below)

6 May 2012 - Farmoor & Didcot

A quick trip to Farmoor failed to produce the Red-rumped Swallow - but did get me Swift as a year tick.

Pied Wagtail - longest tertial looks a newer generation



Swift

Swallow

Coot



My pet parasiticised 7-spot - see yesterday's blog for the earlier stage. How clever of the parasite to use the warning markings of the ladybird to fend off any foes!



Scarlet Tiger - one of two caterpillars found in the garden this afternoon



Two Hedgehogs in the garden this evening.



5 May 2012 - Warburg Reserve & Didcot

Had a morning visit to the BBOWT's Warburg Reserve - managed to fit in a wee bit of pond dipping resulting in 1 Palmate Newt amongst 10 Smooth Newts. Several Odonata remained unID'd...

Arrriving home, found a 7-spot Ladybird with this parasitic wasp larva on its back + rear. An hour later and the parasite had spun his (or her) little cocoon underneath the ladybird (I'll take another snap tomorrow) and was about to begin the process of transforming in to a wee wasp.



Parasitised (Dinocampus coccinellae) 7-spot Ladybird



Palmate Newt (with filament end to tail + palmations)

Odonata spp

Odonata spp - Broad-bodied Chaser perhaps?

1 May 2012 - Paradise Wood, Long Wittenham

In between the breaks in drought/rain, managed a quick evening trip out to Paradise/Neptune Wood, Long Wittenham. Though the number may not have been fantasic (31 macros of 16 spp), it was nice to see some year-ticks and others that I have no pictures of.



Scalloped Hook-tip



Dotted Chestnut





Mullien





Oak-tree Pug