26 September 2011 - Back Garden, DIdcot, Oxon

More garden catching resulted a few niceties:

Dusky Lemon Sallow

White-point

Willow Beauty

Sallow

Spruce Carpet

23 September 2011 - St Combs, Aberdeenshire

In 1991 I had been at a trade show when the Shetland Sandhill Crane turned up. In 2009, I had been in Australia when the South Ronaldsay bird arrived on Orkney.

News of the adult Sandhill Crane on mainland Scotland gave the potential to see a much wanted blocker. 18 hours after news broke, John Clements and I were watching a Sandhill Crane at St Combs - job done!

Adult Sandhill CraneSeen feeding at 70-80 metres range, the bird was feeding in recently harvested cereal crops. It seems that the bird has actually been around 6 days already as a visitor to the RSPB's Loch of Strathbeg reported a crane last Saturday....

18 September 2011 - Didcot, Oxon

A few moths in the garden trap this morning:

Frosted Orange

Large Ranunculus

Beaded Chestnut

Lunar Underwing

Heart and Dart

10 Sept 2011 - Wittenham Clumps

A very late evening trip to Wittenham Clumps resulted in very little being caught in the woodland. Moving to the rough grassland area produced a lot more moths with an occasional highlight. Moth of the night was a Tissue - new for me.

Tissue

Blood-vein

Angle Shades

Snout

Amblyptilia acanthadactyla

24-spot Ladybird

4 Sept 2011 (pm) - Didcot, Oxon

Couple of minor interest bits in teh garden trap this morning:

Toadflax Pug

Orange Swift

Silver Y

4 Sept 2011 - Paradise Wood, Little Wittenham, Oxon

Decided to pop out for a wee bit of moth trapping.

I had initially thought this was a White-point, based on size, shape, markings and clear circular white mark (it didn't have a black belly so was a female whatever spp), then I thought Clay. Now, thanks to expert help, I'm settled on White-point (Thanks to Martin Harvey for the comments).

Lots of Common Wainscot

Rustic spp aggregate - picture taken to compare shape with Suspected, caught in Scotland a couple of weeks ago. Epiblema foenella

Endothenia quadrimaculana

3 September 2011 - Long Wittenham Wood, Oxon

Decided to take advantage of the warm night and take the MV light out to the woods - caught flippin loads of moths in the few hours I was out, nearly all Large Yellow-underwings and Square-spot Rustics!

Amongst few highlights were this 'brown phase' Rosy Rustic

Grey Pine Carpet

Tawny-speckled PugChinese CharacterSpectacleOak Hook-tipChequered Fruit-tree TortrixCarcina quercanaEarlier in the day I snapped a few Heather Ladybirds that my gov'ner had found

26 August 2011 - Blairgowrie, Perthshire

No moth trapping last night... Only highlight was a Spotted Flycatcher in the garden, appearing shortly after a thunder storm.

25 August 2011 - Blairgowrie, Perthshire

Have had two garden ticks for out CSottish holiday residence, Tree Pipit yesterday and today a female/imm Redstart.

Redstart

24 August 2011 - Moorland above Kinloch, Perthshire

WIth cold night temperatures now being experienced, a poor catch was inevitable:

Small Wainscot - I caught 15 of these, mainly copper-coloured, in 1.5 hrs

Small Wainscot with Smoky Wainscot

Bordered Beauty

Barred Chestnut

Carpet - miniture specimen of Dark Marbled

Sallow - a very yellow specimen (compared to others caught this week)

Sallow - compare with above (variable indeed)

Black Rustic

July Highflyer

23 August 2011 - The neighbours again!

Another catch in the neighbours garden again. Highlight was a superb Garden Tiger, a memory of rearing these as a kid in rural Cambridgeshire - this one being the first I've caught since trapping.

Garden Tiger

Garden Tiger

Dotted Clay - perhaps!

Ear spp

Black Rustic - smart beasts

Canary-shouldered Thorn

Sallows

Brown-line Bright-eye

Centre-barred Sallow