Randlay Valley Moth Night June 10th, 2011

937 Agapeta hamana

The second meeting of our moth nights run by the Wrekin Forest Volunteers Moth Group (affectionately known as The WuFuV MuGs (a tad difficult to work out I know and somewhat tenuous but once said a few times, it rolls off the tongue quite nicely)).

A cold (min 7 deg C at midnight when we packed up) but dry night, meant for few moths in the traps although a number of species were observed around dusk flying in the meadows. I potted up and ID’d the above micro Agapeta hamana along with over 20+ of one of the more common grass veneer micro’s;
Crambus lathoniellus




As the sun started to set over the tree-line and with a plethora of song birds singing their evening lullabies Mark and Lydia obviously overcome with the ambience of the event  burst into a slow waltz, skittling a surprised Keith to the ground. You can see why Lydia is so attracted to Mark though; he has a light shining out the top of his head! Now where can I get one of those? Aha… I’ll ask new kid-on-the-block Paul Fallon - he has one too!



As dark slowly descended, our 4 traps and Keith’s infamous sheet and torch were completely underwhelmed with  moths! In fact there were very few, although there’s no telling how many would have been around after midnight. My guess is they were all waiting in the trees and grasses for us to leave! And where was Lizzie when we needed her?



I’m still working on the final count and ID’s but with the early evening observations and the traps-count there were over 80 moths including the first signs of yellow peril with a couple or so Large Yellow Underwings and a Peppered Moth made an appearance in my actinic trap too.



We were also joined by a couple of other newcomers Jessica and Marianne who popped in on Graham’s invitation to see what we were doing and why we do it. They’ve been working with the Green Gym on various nature reserve projects including helping to build the new steps on the Randlay site, but this was their first moth night. Hope you weren’t put-off too much by the antics of some members of the crazy gang and hope to see you both at the next one at Apley Woods on Friday, June 24th.




Eleven of us appeared on the night including County Moth Recorder Tony Jacques who no matter how I try to surreptitiously take a photo or two always seems to spot me. Tony, by the way, despite his fame (a reserved celeb), always shies away from the limelight and hates having his photo taken. Whoops! There I go again. How do you rub things out here?

 
 

I’ll publish the final count of moths once I’ve collated everyone’s results: Keith, I have your ONE record, Les, still waiting confirmation of your THREE was it?, Graham I think had FOUR and Tony/Andy - are you submitting your usual 3 pages even though you didn’t have a trap? How do they do that?

Catch you all again soon

Paul Watts
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Grimpo Nature Notes from Pete Lambert June 2011

I have never been sunburnt this often in April in my whole life, even whilst working abroad. The driest April possibly since records began ended with a wet and windy welcome to May. I have tried a little harder to take note of the timings of things, our barn nesting swallows reappeared on 21st April, rebuilding their nest and bombing the sheltering laundry beneath with mud and droppings. On the 25th April my first St Marks flies droned along the lanes, [ punctual this year as they are said to appear on St. Marks day which is the 25th April!], legs hanging untidily beneath their black clumsy bodies and on the 28th April Maybugs or cockchafers loudly crashing into the backdoor.

Phenology is the study of naturally reoccurring events such as the flowering of plants and the appearance of migratory species. The murmurings are that this year the floral spring displays are at least two weeks early, certainly the bluebell in the woods and the hedgerow garlic mustard are beginning to go over all too soon. I felt that this year had been a good year for violets though a friend pointed out that with such good dry weather I had probably been outside more often than usual in April. Regardless of whether there were more or less this delightful low nodding blue flower was cherished on grassy verge and woodland path-side all the same.

An awkward path lead us up into the thick woods past brooding low yew trees beneath one of which was the carcass of a  badger cub just feet away from a very active sett. I was intrigued even turning over the corpse to reveal a burying beetle making the most of the opportunity. Badger cubs have a clandestine existence for their first year, spending a lot of time underground, virtually ignored by the adult members of the clan. Adult badgers never initiate play, it is always the cubs that provoke the grumpy grown ups. A third of all badger cubs do not survive longer than 3 months, many are sadly the victims of infanticide by females other than their mothers, the corpse being dragged to the surface. I can only guess that this was the fate of this youngster.

It is the fate of many other mammals also to be prey items in the diet of a successful predator. Whilst following the footpaths through a local Estate I was admiring the collection of stately ancient trees, big, gnarled, long limbed living monuments. Another Estate that I visited a few weeks before had been felling their ancient trees for firewood, shame on them, that’s what coppice and plantations are for.  Back to my walk, one of these trees had been rendered by time so it was hollow and pocked by holes, looking up I could see lots of twigs and stuff, and to my delight on the ground Barn Owl pellets. The pellets are the regurgitated remains of the owls meals, a matrix of fur, feathers or both which contains bone fragments. After soaking the pellet it can be teased apart to reveal the identity of the bone owners. I took home three pellets, in one the skull, jaws and limb bones of a Wood mouse or Yellow necked mouse , though more likely to be the first. The other pellets contained the bony remains of a House mouse and a Field vole. The jaw sizes are different, the teeth of the mice are vaguely similar to our molars but the vole teeth are distinct in being arranged as a zig-zag. Much can be learnt from the study of owl pellets, kestrels and other birds of prey leave them too, on the simplest level I now know that the three mammal species are found locally and even better I may even see a Barn owl with luck and good timing.

And finally the wildlife flyboat down by the canal is delivering again, a keen eyed friend has seen reed warblers, scimitar swifts, early damselflies, a Red Admiral and the pretty Common Blue butterflies. Keen-eared too he has heard a cuckoo in the Rednal area, I heard  mine in a wet wood on the Weald Moors north of Telford and I hope you will also share in this simple early summer pleasure.

Happy wildlife spotting!

Pete Lambert

If you would like to share your nature notes please email me on petewoodman@thewoods12.fsnet.co.uk , thanks.

Blitzing Blists Hill

Friday, May 27 saw The Wrekin Forest Volunteers descend on Blists Hill Victorian Town Museum to survey the area of woodland, ponds and canal around the site and what a great day out it was too!

We were somewhat distracted from our task as a policeman collared a bike-thief which was very entertaining. Was that Alistair’s bike?



Jim’s obviously just left the Victorian sweet shop with a huge bag of goodies and Pete looks ready to thwack the thief around the head with his clipboard!

Onwards!  We spent a very interesting day bimbling and fossicking around and found a plethora of interesting plants and invertebrates. Although the day was mainly cloudy, the rain kept off and many of our flying friends came out to play.




I’ve only recently started to  spot picture-winged flies and this one (Cerajocera ceratocera) was a beauty:-




And then there was this excellent shot from Nigel of a Longhorn Beetle:-



Did anyone get a firm ID? I don’t see it in Chinery and  I had a quick look on the net but couldn’t nail it. If anyone has a name please drop me an email and I’ll update this blog post.

The pond-dipping team were out in force today surveying the quality of ponds and canal. Engrossed as I was in inverts I didn’t hear the outcome of that but there was at least one very pungent pond I almost slipped into!

On the ‘leps’ front Lizze and I found many Common Blue butterflies along with a lone Burnet Companion moth and a few of us caught a lovely selection of micro-moth species - a couple of them I’m still trying to ID. But here’s one I did - was it Keith who caught this? It was one of a pair and they go by the fabulous name of Pseudargyrotoza conwagana - trips off the tongue nicely that one!



In a large wooded area of Common Nettle we found 50 or more Common Green Capsids, lots of colourful spiders were presented to Nigel, and Lizze came across an Eyed Ladybird



Lunch for some was a Cottage Pie in the restaurant but many of us couldn’t resist the prospect of savouring beef-dripping fried fish and chips. Fabulous!



The larva found on nettle was indeed as someone suggested (Les?) a Comma butterfly



I managed to find 3 species of shield bugs;- Birch, Green and a final instar Forest which I have here at home to bring through to adult.



I think between us we built up quite a list of flora and fauna and look forward to seeing the full tally once we’ve completed our final  ID’s.

All-in-all an excellent day out and thanks must go to the management of Blists Hill and for Pete of course for arranging the event.
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