Grimpo Nature Notes – September 2013 by Pete Lambert

Now that’s better, sun, occasional showers and a full month of moths. For the last month I have been recording the night time flutterers who have bumbled through the kitchen window to crash against the ceiling lights. A creamy, large, Swallowtailed moth, a member of the Geometer family of Lepidoptera order was my first confidently named visitor.  Geometer moths are rather flimsy and settle with their wings held flat, which helped me get a good view of the distinctive wing shape that gives the moth its common name. Moths and butterflies are an artificial separation of a large group of winged invertebrates, of which approximately 2500 species can be found in the UK, composed of numerous family groups.  Identifying moths and butterflies can in many cases be quite straightforward when tackling larger and more colourful individuals, though many of the smaller micro-moths are quite, if not very, challenging.  We live in an area that includes a network of hedgerows, damp grasslands, rough vegetated corners and not so many miles away, open country. My moth list reflected these habitat preferences and helped me understand more about the various families energised by the warm damp evenings.

Accompanying the Swallowtailed moth a further two Geometer moths were encountered in the kitchen, the Shaded Broad Bar, a lover of grassy places and a Bloodvein, the vein running across both upper wings, in this case more purple than pink.  A single Hawkmoth let itself into our middle son’s bedroom, was adopted and christened Reginald, but sadly expired before the week was out. Hawkmoths are stout and generally fast flying; our Reginald was an Elephant Hawkmoth, so called because the caterpillar has a trunk like snout, which if alarmed it sways menacingly to and fro. Reginald like the other members of his family was brightly coloured and large, though not the largest of his kind, this honour is reserved for the Deaths Head Hawkmoth, a summer visitor mainly to the south.  Numerous Footman moths busied themselves in the downstairs rooms, Common and Dingy Footman, the first a denizen of our local hedgerows and the second favouring wet woodland. Neat powder grey with pale yellow trim, I like the Common Footman, rescuing one from the bath last night I had a closer look at this tidy moth, admiring the way its elliptical wings lay flat over its back.

By far the largest family to send representatives to the house were the Noctuid moths, stout, cryptically coloured, wings held roof wise, and busy. The Antler, Great Brocade, Silver Y seem to be off piste from their favoured open country, though the Snout, Dot and Grey Dagger are more comfortably in reach of nettles, cultivation and hawthorn hedges.  Moths acquire their common names occasionally through obvious markings, antler shapes on the Antler moth, dagger patterns on the Grey Dagger and a silver Y on the Silver Y. How the Clay moth derived its name is obscure but I was pleased to be able to work out that it was a male from the dark, triangular patch of hairs on its underside. A couple of Underwing members of the Noctuids also turned up, the Large Yellow Underwing and the Lesser Broad Bordered Yellow Underwing.  Both have a fast erratic flight, flashing the bright yellow under-wing and then dropping to the ground to confuse and evade predators.

As the mothing month drew to a close I recorded a single Swift, this being a pretty little Orange Swift and the only Eggar moth of the period, a Drinker. The Drinker is so called because its larvae have the habit of drinking from water droplets on leaves. And finally of the eight families associated with the butterflies, a sunny day brought me Meadow Browns, Ringlets, Gatekeepers, a Red Admiral, Large and Small Whites and finally three pristine Commas, all gorgeous!

Happy wildlife watching, Pete.