Underwater moth trapping...in Witch country

 The Safari has been trying to do some moth trapping both at Base Camp and further afield.

Our first attempt was for the Royal Society of Biologists at a nearby Country Park. Good pal CP did a fantastic warm up act for us with a great talk on bats that had one of the attendees in stitches laughing at the thought of Bat Ladders. Then outside as dusk drew darker the bats came out to play and put on a great show for us sending our bat detectors into a heated frenzy of sound...a superb start to the evening. 

We were supposed to put the moth trap up on the green by the gardens once the bat excitement was over. Then everyone could sit round the sheets armed with a pot with which to catch the moths for us to identify as they came to the light. Well that never happened cos down came the rain by the bucketful. So 'indoor' moth trapping it was. The centre has a covered outdoor classroom at the back so it was in there that we set up out of the rain. The trouble with heavy rain is the moths don't like it and won't venture out - and who would blame them? A small number of hardy indivuals did appear, mostly Large Yellow Underwings and a few mico-moths. But we were trapping close to an Apple Tree which had attracted a goood number of Common Wasps. Fortunately we were using the sheet and light technique so could easily see them - it might have been a case of watch where you put your hands had we been coming to empty a box full of cold sleepy ones in the morning.

A few evenings later, after the rains had finished, we set the trap up at Base Camp and caught the grand total of ZERO moths - that's not in the rule books! The following night we tied again, rain wasn't forecast but we heard it lashing it down during the night - not a good omen -- just 6 soggy moths were in the trap come the morning. Things have got to get better, it's July for crying out loud!

For our next event we'd been invited by DSW, Community Engagement Officer for the Forest of Bowland AoNB Connecting People and Nature Project to lead a moth trapping and other wildlify bits n bobs event for one of her community groups...no way we could say no to that so with a car loaded up with all kinds of kit n kiboodle we headed off for the furthest reaches of East Lancashire aand the famous Witch country round the back of Pendle Hill.

We were taken to Clarion House, a community centre up in hills above the tiny village of Roughlee. To be honest the Safari has been to Australia more often than this part of east Lancashire so it's not surprising we'd never heard of the place until now. But what a lovely place and what a gorgous setting up on the hill overlooking the town of Colne down across the valley...that's if we could see that far, it was a grim old day.

Ever the optomists DSW and us set about putting up the moth trap. We decided the most sheltered area behind the building and under a substantial Birch tree was going to be the best option. Heavy rain and strong winds were forecast for overnight so we took the extra precaution of erecting a gazebo over the trap and tying that to the tree to stop it flying off over the hills towards Cheshire.

Back at Base Camp we were woken in the small hours by torrential rain lashing against the window driven by a howling gale. We spent the rest of the night worrying about the electrics-water and hot bulb-cold raindrops combos. Luckily we needn't have worried as in the end all was fine when we arrived back on site in the morning. And now with the group eager to see what had been happening overnight it was time to empty the trap. But before that we had a look on the laptop to see if the trail camera we'd set up overnight had caught anything.

We'd placed it along a track beside a woodland shelterbelt and close to a compost heap, something was bound to wander by, hopefully a deer, a Fox, a Badger, or maybe a Hedgehog or even a Rabbit? Nothing! Our fingers were well and truly crossed there wouldn't be a re-run of our zero moths escapade at Base Camp a few nights earlier given the weather was much worse this time. Thankfully there were moths and we got off to a flying (pun intended) start with a few on the sheet outside the trap.

Scalloped Oak

Lesser Swallow Prominent

The pick of the bunch for us was this Gold Spangle which never having mothed up hill before was a new species for us.

The final tally was a small but better than expected given the weather 21 moths of 14 species plus a few unidentified micro-moths and a couple of escapees.

We'd also taken our bat kit so had a little talk about bats, their biology especially their hunting echolocation and bat detectors and the fact they are predators of moths.

As well as the real live plastic bat we'd brought along a long dead real live dead Pipistrelle for them to hold and get a feel of how tiny they actually are.

This one was found dead trapped in a chimney many years ago.

When we were told that Clarion House had a pond there was nothing else to do but put a load of nets and trays in the car. Never one to waste an opportunity for some pond dipping are we?

 

We found waterboatmen, diving beetles and lots of what weassume from the location to be Palmate Newt efts (newtlets) still with their gills

The grounds of Clarion House have a mix of habitats, rough grass, well mown grass, wildflower meadow with Heath Spotted Orchids, wet meadow and a bit of Heather and Bilberry moorland as well as a small formal garden.

All this attracts a great variety of wildlife even on rainy days.

Heath Spotted Orchid

Heather

Red Admiral

Ringlet

Small Tortoiseshell

The bee we think could be Colletes succinctus, Heather Colletes by vitue of its presence in an upland habitat but we could be wrong. And we added the Greenbottle fly in to show that flies are very important pollinators but often overlooked or even disregarded in favour of bees and hoverflies. This week is Big Butterfly Count Week (that's probally why it's so cold wet n windy!) so we've put some butterfly pics in for you too.

To close here's a lovely arty shot that sums up the day very well.

A fantasic safari at a superb location we hope to visit again with a great bunch of people we hope to meet again soon. Huge thanks to DSWfor inviting us and providing some of the photos as we forgot our camera, although were too busy to take pics anyway, and to group member B for the use of her pics too - thank you very much.

Where to next? The Safari will be heading north into the wilds of South Cumbria.

In the meantime let us know who's underwater in your outback.

Lightning can indeed strike the same place twice

The Safari has had a rather mixed weekend. For starters the weather looked good overnight Saturday into Sunday so we put the moth trap out but then when we woke to take Frank out it was lashing down with rain and the trap was awash, all we could do was pull the plug on it so as not to get electrocuted and throw a sheet of ply-wood over it to keep out any more of the wet stuff and we hoped none of the incumbents would try to do a runner until we got to it later. The rain lasted well into the early morning and gave us no chance to go and investigate its contents as we had the final session of National Whale and Dolphin Watch to set up.

Arriving at Chat Alley all looked as good as it can get. There was a light offshore breeze and the sea had calmed down to little more than a rumpled carpet, there was no sun so no black shadows to confuse the issue, this was going to be a blubber-fest at last!

A chap came paddling by in his kayak, an indication of how calm it was, we've hardly seen any of these guys this year.

So we scanned and scanned again hopeful that one or more of the six Bottlenosed Dolphins seen just over our northern horizon a couple of days ago would put in an appearance. They didn't and there was little bird-life out there to give any clues to the whereabouts of any fish shoals.

A Grey Seal was found early on but it drifted round the old boating pool on the incoming tide and was soon lost to view.

The bird-life was poor other than about 1500 Common Scoters with more seeming to join the stretched out flock from inside the bay, had they been in there all the while just out of sight or had they over-landed at height following the river valley and dropped to an inch above the sea once over the water?

Nothing much else moved, even the local young gulls just mooched about aimlessly until someone arrived behind us with a loaf of bread. Eventually a young Gannet appeared drifting casually northwards without breaking off in any direction to suggest there might be something scaly about.  A Bar Tailed Godwit went past southwards, then a Curlew and after some time eight Golden Plovers it really was as exciting as that!

Menacing dark cloud grew to our south and with it came light flecks of rain, meanwhile out to sea a cluster of gulls began to gather with a bit of animation but it as the excitement grew so did the cloud and nearer it came until first the distant rig then the tug boat off Patch 2 disappeared in the wall of rain and visibility dropped to a couple of miles. A few more minutes and those flecks of rain had become rather large and more numerous droplets not long afterwards we could barely see the sea and were now soaked so abandoned ship again. What a disappointing end to such a promising start to the session.

Once back at Base Campit was another couple of hours before we could go and look in the moth trap. Fortunately this turned out to be far better than the blubber watching. Some local moth-ers have been reporting catches in the hundreds of individuals of dozens of species but our sessions so far this season have been ultra poor. Today's was easily our best yet! 15 moths, 12 species including a new for the garden, the very small and nondescript micromoth Bryotropha terrella, and over half new for the year with NO Large Yellow Underwings! We were expecting to be deluged by them.

Clay

Grey Dagger

A different view of Scalloped Oak

So the day might have been a bit of a washout but it wasn't lost altogether.

Then later in the evening we saw news of a Ring Billed Gull at the Common Tern nesting site a few miles away and to far to think about going three and then. We resolved to go at the earliest opportunity even though it's quite likely to hang around for a while.

This morning we had a children's holiday group mini-beast hunt on Patch 1. Just before we were about to leave the office the rain in a similarly dark and ominous looking cloud to yesterday's hit the window with a vengeance, ah well we thought, another soaking coming up!

Thankfully it wasn't to be and the kids that turned up had a great time finding Red Soldier Beetles, Honey Bees, Carder Bees, lots of different hoverflies, Large White, Speckled Wood and Small Skipper butterflies. They found tiny 'money'  spiders on cobwebs, Woodlice in the leaf litter heard a young Sparrowhawk begging for it's breakfast and they saluted chattering Magpies. They watched Iris Sawfly caterpillars devouring the reeds in the pond, had a look at huge Ramshorn and Great Pond Snails but their best find was a couple of the tiniest little Frogs you ever a did see.

The hour came and went and lunchtime drew near as the weather warmed up bringing out the  little horrors that are known in 'Latin' as 'Blood Drinkers of the Rains', the Cleggs so the parents decided the little ones had had enough and some dinner was needed. It had been a great session! They went their separate ways and we decided to head gullward. If we could get out of town to a point of no return in good time we'd continue if not then once we hit that pint then we'd veer back to the office. The stars (and stripes) must have been aligned in our favour for once as we made it out of town very easily and not too many minutes later were pulling in to the car park with eager anticipation.

It was as we approached the binoculared and camered crowd that we realised the stars and stripes had been aligned very much in our favour. A lad walking away told us exactly where to look and said he'd been waiting ages and it only showed up five minutes earlier - well past the time he should have been back at work by!

First three pics - camera

Next four digiphonescoped

One first summer moulting into second winter all American Ring Billed Gull (173) - almost to the inch from where we saw our first one way back in 1991. Lightning certainly does strike the same place twice!

It might be the 'easiest' American species to find over this side of the Atlantic, although some might say Pectoral Sandpiper is, but it's very welcome all the same.

Where to next? Not sure what's on the menu tomorrow
in the meantime let us know who's crossing ponds in your outback.

It's that time of year again

The Safari wasn't sure what today. First up was a trip up the garden to empty the moth trap. It had cooled down a bit overnight but not enough to put the moths off entirely. 

There were a few nice ones in there including our first Scalloped Oak of the year and a nice visitor we don't see that often 

 Single Dotted Wave

Luckily we weren't over-run with Large Yellow Underwings but neither did we have any of the hawkmoths we were hoping for.

A bonny Caddisfly needs the help of those very clever iSpotters.

The garden had some nice light too so we had a bit of an arty moment

We weren't able to get out until lunchtime as usual, we'd watched the weather and it was fine but a little too windy for what we were thinking of, a trip to Chat Alley to look for cetaceans and sea-birds. We needed an alternative so seeing as it was sunny we decided to bob down to Patch 1. OK we had an inkling that something might be happening in the sunshine as the old social media had been reporting White Letter Hairstreaks appearing at the start of last week at the other end of the motorway and we're usually about a week behind them. No chance of them emerging in the all day rain on Friday but yesterday finished quite warm and pleasant finishing with a quickly warming morning we were just a little bit optimistic.

We hoped Frank would be able to make the walk, we didn't fancy driving just round the corner, but we needn't have worried he seemed up for it today and once past his usual faltering places seemed to realise where he was going and off he went at (for him) breakneck speed eager to get there. We had to stop him as a Kestrel was resting up on the Peregrine's ledge, first of the year on Patch 1!

Once in Patch 1 we heard Long Tailed Tits and a Blackcap singing, the same one we'd heard at Base Camp while we were emptying the moth trap?

A Brown Hawker patrolled the hot almost still interior of the glade. It was hot in there, as is usual. Frank found his favourite and only little bit of shade.

He looks a bit glum cos we'd just whacked a well bedded in Clegg drinking copious amounts of blood from the near end of his snout. We'd just about bathed in insect repellent before leaving Base Camp and had sprayed him all over where he couldn't lick but still one got him! Horrors they are!!!

Meadow Browns, Large Skippers were all over as were bees, at least half of all bees were Tree Bees, the sound track was the chirping of grasshoppers, almost no human noise down here at all - bliss!

It only took us a matter of minutes to come across our main quarry. A couple of flits up in the top of the Sycamore told us that the White Letter Hairstreaks had indeed emerged as we'd deduced (= hoped).

Eventually our patience was rewarded by one coming down to nectar on the Brambles - isn't that the old saying 'everything comes to he who waits'?

 We were joined by a real entomologist, BB, on his hoverfly mission he braved the depths of the  'habitat'.

The White Letter Hairstreaks continued to show on and off (more off than on) to the patient wait-er and eventually we got a pic of one with our phone.

Happy, happy days.

We were there a good three hours and by now it was getting close to Frank's tea-time. Time to think about heading back to Base Camp but not before we'd heard a Chiffchaff and seen a family of Dunnocks and Wrens.

Where to next? Back to Patch 2 buit not until lunchtime tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who's hunch paid off in your outback.