Thursday May 25

Another warm night produced a macro-moth in the bathroom. I recognised it immediately as being the most distinctive form of Common Marbled Carpet. Readers of my other blog, Morton Bagot Birder, may be amused by the glibness of this identification because a few years ago I saw an identical moth, and after checking through all the books I had at the time, eventually posted a picture of it under the title mystery moth. Fortunately, it wasn't too long before Craig Round saw the photo and kindly came up with the solution.

You live and learn.

Common Marbled Carpet after it escaped the pot and landed on the brickwork

A little later in the morning I finally got a chance to photograph a Holly Blue in the garden. It had been visiting regularly for a couple of weeks, but always flew off as soon as the discovery was made.

Holly Blue

It seems to be a good spring for them.

Later still, I returned to Ipsley Alders determined to look only at birds, butterflies, and dragonflies to avoid hours staring at beetles and other bugs on the internet later. In the wooded boundary a Jay was flying around the canopy pursued by an array of mobbing Tits. It was obviously on the lookout for nests to rob.

Jay

I eventually arrived at the pool, and couldn't resist admiring the view.

Plenty of birds were singing, including Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcaps, Goldcrests (there were also recently fledged young), Treecreeper, Chiffchaffs, and Common Whitethroats.

Common Whitethroat

I saw relatively few butterflies, but did manage several Speckled Woods, a few Green-veined Whites, a Large White, and a Red Admiral.

The dragonflies on offer were the same as yesterday, although I did get confused by some damselflies which I have come to realise were the rufescens form of female Blue-tailed Damselfly.

Blue-tailed Damselfly 

Finally, as well as the Mirror Carp which were blundering about in the pond, another escape was evidently frequenting the same bit of space.

Terrapins are bad news. Kept as pets they often get released into ponds and lakes in suburbia, and they then tend to eat their way through the local wildlife. Needless to say they have no natural enemies in the UK.

Stop Press: During the early evening I was about to plant out some flowers of some description when I noticed a pretty, but familiar, micro-moth. It was a Pyrausta aurata. Another one for the year-list.

Pyrausta aurata