Saturday September 24

The lack of recent posts has been a reflection of my recent lack of effort. Despite commenting that I needed to start looking at birds, I have to admit that the birds noticed in the garden and its environs recently have been too unremarkable to be worthy of comment.

Instead, it is a moth which has sparked the blog back into life. If it had been a rare moth this would have been one of the all-time great intros; I was taking a shower when I noticed a small speck on the shower rail. I wondered if it could be a moth, so captured it to investigate further.

It turned out that it was a tiny moth, and also that it was a very common one. With the naked eye it just looked like a tiny black streak, maybe the leg of a small spider. But through the lens of my camera, which was having trouble focussing on it because I could not persuade the moth out of the pot, it revealed itself to have an interesting pattern of spots at its rear end, and to actually be fawn brown with white legs and antennae.

Apple-leaf Miner Lyonetia clerkella

The Apple-leaf Miner is probably the smallest moth I have ever identified. It's presence is not unexpected as we have an enormous apple tree in the garden. In fact I then investigated the leaves and quickly found several leaf mines which were probably made by the caterpillars of this species.

Leaf ones probably created by an Apple-leaf Miner

While I was messing about with the moth a party of six Meadow Pipits flew south calling.

There you are, some birds!

Wednesday September 7

After another few days of warmer than average nights, the bathroom window was thrown open in the hope that we would be inundated by moths.

In the event four moths did find their way in, but there was nothing new (or at least I don't think so).

First up was a Double-striped Pug on Sunday night.

Double-striped Pug

Then last night produced two noctuid in the bathroom, and one in the hall. One was a migrant, but a common one, in the form of a Silver Y.

Silver Y

No problem identifying them. The last two were the tricky dull ones I slightly dread. Eventually I decided they were both Square-spot Rustics. I did think of emailing the recorder again, but I suspect he is getting sick of seeing photos of common moths, so I will stick with my own identifications.

The Square-spot Rustic found in the hall

The Square-spot Rustic found in the bathroom

Its probably time I started looking at birds again.

Friday September 2

After a very quiet week, moth-wise, two turned up in the bathroom last night.

One was another Garden Carpet, but the other was a brown noctuid I was unable to name. However, an email to Michael Southall has produced the answer. It was a Flounced Rustic (great name), and was a moth tick for me and also for our bathroom.

Flounced Rustic

Garden Carpet

It seems that Flounced Rustic is an autumn-flying moth which is quite familiar to the local mothers (pronounced moth-ers).