Friday August 25

The days of daily posts to report new moths in the bathroom appear to be over. The last ten days have tended to be a bit cool, and when, like last Monday, a warmer night came along the moths failed to oblige.

There have been a few; Large Yellow Underwing, Double-striped Pug, Twenty-plume Moth, but all ones which have occurred before this year. One micro defied identification, possibly a blastobasis sp. The photograph was not really clear enough. Here it is anyway.

Don't know

One feature to please the stay at home birder at this time of the year is the action on the feeders. Every morning about 40 birds have visited the feeders. The majority have been Blue Tits and Long-tailed Tits, with up the eight House Sparrows. Scarcer visitors have been been a Nuthatch, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Blackcap, and a Chiffchaff.

The Buddleia has attracted Peacock, Red Admirals, Large White, Small White, and Small Tortoiseshell.

Today our car has been taken away for servicing. The day is warm and sunny. Just after lunch my enforced captivity became too much to bear, and I decided to walk over to Ipsley Alders to see what I could find.

Birds were pretty much off the agenda due to the time of day, a male Blackcap being the highlight. I was hoping to see some butterflies, but they were disappointing. I saw lots of Speckled Woods and Large Whites, but nothing else.

It was left to dragonflies to brighten the afternoon. In particular there were lots of Migrant Hawkers in evidence, and for once some of them allowed me to photograph them.

Female Migrant Hawker

Male Migrant Hawker

I also photographed a tiny moth in the boggy grassland at the east side of the reserve. It looked quite extraordinary in the view finder, and I felt sure I hadn't seen one before. However, reality has since set in and I think that part of its strange appearance is a result of the shadow cast by a grass stem. Its red eyes are harder to explain away though, maybe the light caused it to reflect the colour.

It appears to be one of two species, the common Agriphila tristella, or the scarcer (and usually coastal) Agriphila selasella. Neither is supposed to have red eyes (but neither are any other British grass-veneer species). In the end I have gone for the commoner species, but mainly out of cowardice.

Overnight I caught two Agriphila geniculea a species I caught in the bathroom last year. Another year-tick though.

Agriphila geniculea

Post script: Many thanks to John Sirrett who responded to my Twitter post by corning that the grass veneer species at Ipsley Alders was actually the scarcer Agriphila selasella. Tick !