Thursday July 13

Slightly cooler weather, and some rain yesterday, did not deter a macro-moth from entering the bathroom last night.

It looked immediately familiar, and was soon identified as a moth called The Snout.

The Snout

It seems rather strange having the definite article in the name of a moth. I can therefore say I caught a The Snout, which sounds wrong. Its a very common moth, apparently associated with Nettles, and I have recorded it in the garden before.

The Snout's snout showing well

Yesterday's rain encouraged our least favourite animal group to start moving around, although I do have a bit of a soft spot for the Garden Snail, even when one smears its way up our dining room window.

Garden Snail from below

Finally, I am supposed to be a birder, so I will at least mention that it is tit flock season, and we had an entry in the "how many Long-tailed Tits can fit on a feeder?" competition.

Four juvenile Long-tailed Tits

Tuesday July 11

It was cooler last night, and just two moths appeared, micros as usual.

One was another Twenty-plume Moth. The other was much more interesting.

Diamond-back Moth 

This tiny moth, the size of a seed, is often described as a migrant. However I do not know whether it is also resident. It is a garden tick anyway.

Sunday July 9

Another warm night produced more micro-moths in the bathroom, only one of which I could recognise.

Starting with that one, it was the first Twenty-plume moth of the year. They turn up regularly in the summer.

Twenty-plume Moth

The remainder are currently unidentified, but I will be trying to puzzle them out during the week.

Holly Tortrix

Blastodacna hellerella

Possibly Blastobasis adustella

I've managed to identify the middle moth as Blastodacna hellerella. It's food plants include Whitebeam, a large example of which lies outside our front door.

Rather embarrassingly I have concluded that the first moth is another Holly Tortrix. You might have thought I would have realised straight away.

However, I've almost given up on the third moth. I think it may be an adventive species of the genus Blastobasis, the commonest of which is adustella. Adventive means accidentally introduced, like Ring-necked Parakeet. However, that's where the analogy ends because the group of six or so Adustella moths can only be safely identified through microscopic examination of their genitalia. So imagine if Parakeets looked like Reed Warblers, and you have got the Blastobasis moths.

Saturday July 8

Yesterday morning I spotted a pug on the kitchen window. After potting it I decided it was a Double-striped Pug, a species I have recorded in the garden before.

Double-striped Pug

Last night, another Tortrix moth made it into the bathroom. Currently down to one pot I decided to photograph it in the poor light of the living room before releasing it and hoping for something bigger.

Fruit-tree Tortrix sp

Nothing turned up, and the photo leaves me torn between Dark Fruit-tree Tortrix and Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix.

However, tonight was a different story. It began well as I found a second perspex pot. This meant that as long as only two moths turned up I would be able to carry on catching and photographing the following morning.

Straight away I caught my two moths, a massive Large Yellow Underwing, and a fascinating micro which was clearly going to be a new one.

Large Yellow Underwing

The new one proved to be Ypsolopha scabrella, the first of this genus of moths I have seen, though evidently not rare.

Ypsolopha scabrella

Unfortunately it didn't stop there, as four more moths entered the bathroom. Two were species I had seen this year, Crambus pascuella, and a Double-striped Pug. The third was possibly the moth from last night. My only option was to photograph them in the unnatural light of the bathroom.

Probably Dark Fruit-tree Tortrix Pandemis heparana

Crambus pascuella

Double-striped Pug

The last one was probably a new species, but my photo attempt was awful. My only hope is that it is still in the bathroom and I catch it tomorrow night.

Tortricidae sp

All to play for then.

Thursday July 6

The very warm weather is continuing. Not much moth activity in our bathroom, just one micro (other than yet another Brown House Moth) was caught. I am having trouble identifying it, and think it may be from the tortricidae group. Thanks to Michael for suggesting, tentatively, Holly Tortrix as the solution.

Holly Tortrix - Rhopobota naevana

Rather easier to identify was a Small Tortoiseshell on the Buddleia. It has taken a very long time to record this once common butterfly. How are the mighty fallen! Lyn spotted a large white butterfly while I was at work, and I noticed a brown one flying across the road as I drove into our road.

Small Tortoiseshell

Sunday July 2

Easing myself back into the patch by sitting in the garden this afternoon. The buddleia has flowered in our absence, and attracted a Red Admiral today.

Red Admiral

Two new butterflies for the year were a Ringlet and a Meadow Brown. Meanwhile a Robin was collecting food on our patio, and clearly is feeding young nearby. It was very relaxed about our proximity, even stopping to sun itself for a while.

Much trickier was a bee, which I think was a Willughby's Leaf-cutter Bee. We have had them nesting in a bee-house in the garden in previous years, but not at the moment.

Willughby's Leafcutter Bee

This evening a familiar moth flew into the bathroom, the first Riband Wave of the year.

Riband Wave

Cruising the Norwegian fjords

I have been away, as the title of this post suggests, scanning a lot of breath-taking scenery and eating a lot of food. This was Lyn and my first holiday abroad for many years, but I don't think it is relevant to this blog to go on about it at length.

Where the wildlife was concerned it has to be said that cruising on a Cunard liner is not ideal, while our on shore activity was limited to pottering around a few ports. In other words I didn't see many birds.

In Norway itself, it was interesting to find that Common Gull was by far the commonest gull species at all the ports, House Sparrows are abundant, and with minimum effort I also saw a couple of Tree Sparrows. At our furthest north location, Arctic Terns were nesting on the roofs. Another common gull was the intermedius race of Lesser Black-backed Gull.

Arctic Tern

The larger corvids were all Hooded Crows, while the Jackdaw I saw at Stavanger was presumably of the race monedula, known as Nordic Jackdaw. Not that you could tell. The Alba Wagtails were White Wagtail of course.

Hooded Crow

A very subtle Nordic Jackdaw

Lesser Black-backed Gull - race intermedius

The trip up across the North Sea produced only Gannets, Guillemots, and Fulmars. The return journey in calmer conditions allowed me to see far more of the above plus a Manx Shearwater, an Arctic Skua, and a pair of summer-plumaged Red-throated Divers. Sadly all were too distant to be worth a photograph.

A stunningly beautiful country though.