May 29th Mousehold Heath

Song Thrush

Another bird survey at Mousehold Heath this evening. The conditions were rather dull with misty scenes covering the city, but we still managed to record plenty of songbirds. Out of all of them, it was nice to hear so many song thrushes singing tonight. There seemed to be one calling in every section of the transect. Blackbirds and robins also joined in with the dusk chorus in good numbers. There were very few blue tits and great tits about though. We heard a couple of blue tit families and only a single burst of a great tit. Also tonight, we heard; chaffinches, dunnocks, blackcaps, chiffchaffs, a goldcrest, wrens, magpies, a jay and saw a flock of starlings and plenty of swifts. Towards the end of the survey, we saw a bat and heard the barking of either a fox or a muntjac deer.

Blackbird

Misty Norwich this evening

Song Thrush



May 27th Colchester

Colchester Castle

Out of all my invertebrate targets, one tops them all on my list. I have always wanted to see a stag beetle since I was a kid. But stag beetles are barely recorded in Norfolk and so in order to encounter one I have to travel elsewhere. Colchester is one of the nearest hotspots for these large beetles, where apparently they are found in people's gardens. So, after an hour on the train, I have made it to this old Roman town in Essex to make an attempt on fulfilling a lifetime's ambition.










Stormy scenes

I have never been to Colchester before. Sure, I've been to Colchester Zoo many times, but this is the first time I have visited the town itself. It was quite a bit of walking to get from the train station to the castle and the park surrounding it. But once I got there, the perfect blue skies suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a thunderstorm. Rumbles of thunder was my cue to abandon my first walk around the park and to find somewhere to shelter. Thankfully, the tourist information building in the park was just opening up as the rain started to pour down.







The animatronic Stag Beetle

After a few minutes, the rain stopped and whilst in my temporary shelter, I picked up a map of the town and discovered that there was a natural history museum just across the road. So I decided to see what it was like. The museum was located in an old church and had free entry. I was glad I went to it when I did as it started to rain hard again while I was inside. Though it wasn't a big museum, it was full of dioramas with taxidermy animals set in a variety of habitats of the UK as well as a collection fossils. But my main interest was the small section dedicated to stag beetles. This included a large animatronic stag beetle that moved a little bit at a press of a button.

The Stag Beetle collection

Stag Beetle grubs (not sure why they are on bread though)



Garden Snail

 The man at the desk of this museum was very helpful and told me that he has seen stag beetles in his garden in Colchester about a week or two ago. He said that they are very common in the town and are sometimes found along the town's high street. I was told a few places to check out. First, after the second spell of rain had passed, I checked out the museum's garden, which was the church's small cemetery that was slightly converted into a wildlife garden. It was a nice tiny place where gravestones and nature coexists together. There was a small log pile dedicated to the stag beetles, but there wasn't a stag beetle in sight. There were plenty of snails though, enjoying the damp ground provided by the recent downpour.

Next, I returned to the park for a better walk. The trees were still dripping with the collected rainwater from the leaves, but the sun was out and eventually dried everything up. It was getting hotter by the minute. Promising weather for stag beetles perhaps? Well, no. At least not for me. I checked everywhere, even the small fenced up wild area that was a stag beetle nature reserve. This tiny patch was over grown and had piles of rotting logs, half a tree and a bug hotel-like container full of twigs and bits of wood, all dedicated to stag beetles. It seems these insects are treated like gods by the local council here. But despite the council's helping hand, I was defeated in my search for a stag beetle today.



Grey Squirrel

But just because I couldn't find what I was looking for doesn't mean I didn't enjoy my visit to Colchester. The park was full of wildlife (as well as lots of people enjoying the sunshine), especially squirrels which were everywhere and rather tame. One even bounded to within a couple of metres from my feet. The River Colne was very picturesque and had many banded demoiselles fluttering over the lily pads. And while I was exploring the town during my stag beetle search, I discovered St Botolph's Priory and the town's historic wall. So not a complete waste of my time after all.

Blackbird

Black-headed Gull

Mallard

Lesser Black-backed Gull

The scenic River Colne

Banded Demoiselle

St Botolph's Priory

Colchester's historic town wall



May 24th Mousehold Heath

 

Moth Night

It was moth night at Mousehold Heath last night. And what a great night it turned out to be. I even brought my home-made bug net along with me, which Will and I tested out to catch a few that escaped the lure of the light. The net worked perfectly! Not bad for a net curtain attached to a bamboo cane.

Will testing my net out

Success!

We were very pleased with the variety of moths we caught last night. We even added at least four new species to the site's all time tally. We are edging closer to a landmark total of 250 species, which is fantastic. But, when it comes to identifying moths, I am not very good at it at all. I can tell you some of the easier colourful ones, but when it comes to the brown jobs, their names just go right over my head. I can't remember what they are called at all. So this year, as part of my bug hunting year, I am going to attempt in learning some of them. I think the best way for me to do that is to get to know them a bit better. To learn their best features and what makes them different from the others. So, let's get started...

Lime Hawk-moth



The biggest and most impressive species of last night was this lime hawk-moth. At around 23-39mm, we needed a big pot to contain it for us to get a better look at it. This is a very easy moth to identify with bands of pink and olive on it's characteristic shaped wings. They thrive in areas that have plenty of limes, elms, silver birches and alders.







Brown Silver-lines

The most numerous moth of the night were brown silver-lines. It is simply a brown moth with two central silvery lines across it's middle and with a small dot between them. When it is at rest, the wings close up and the moth's appearance becomes more triangular. It is a moth of heathlands and it's caterpillars feed on bracken.

Brimstone

One moth I can identify without much difficulty is this one. Brimstone moths are bright yellow with brown markings along the edges of the wings. They are extremely common and you can't really mistake it for anything else.



Common Swift

Male common swifts are beautiful moths. When they settle, their wings close upright against their bodies like all moths from the swift family. But what sets it apart from the other species of swift moth are the white markings. These markings look like dots that appear to bleed into one, forming into a pair of bold white lines. Females are pretty dull in comparison as they are a dusky brown without any defining features or markings. You can find them from May to July.

Light Emerald

The light emerald moth is another of those species that are easy enough to pick out of the moth crowd. This is a pale light green moth with a couple of pale white stripes across the middle of the wings.









Spectacled Moth

Spectacled moths are so called because of the grey markings at the front of the thorax looks like it's wearing a pair of spectacles. Other than that, they are brown-grey with a dark centre with spots and stripes that, to me, resembles an owl's face if you look at it this way round.

Top view of a Spectacled Moth

Pale Tussock

This next moth had us baffled. It had it's wings open when we caught it and we had no idea what it was. But then when this pale grey moth settled down, it closed it's wings and placed it's front legs in front of it's head. This meant that it was one of the tussock moths and with it's pale colour, we decided it was a pale tussock. It also had a pair of orange-brown antennae, which means this is a male.

Pale Tussock with wings open

Alder Moth

Another moth that had us scratching our heads was this chap. No wonder as it turned out to be a new species for Mousehold. This was eventually identified as an alder moth. It is mostly grey with black in the centre and a black stripe going across the middle, which I think resembles a chunky, upside down crossbow with an arrow at the bottom.

Heart and Dart

Heart and dart moths are one of the most common visitors to any moth trap. It is named after the heart-shaped splodges on it's wings with the two dark lines above them resembling darts. Fairly simple, but be warned, these moths vary in colour with some being darker or lighter than others, but the pattern remains the same.












Treble Lines

This moth is called a treble lines. This is another moth that is named after it's appearance, which makes things easier for me to remember. It is usually this pale brown colour (though it can be darker) with three thin lines across the wings. They appear from May until early July.







Pale Oak Beauty

I think these two moths are mottled beauties. I am not completely sure, but they are definitely from the Geometridae family (that's the scientific name for moths that have wide wings with geometric patterns). There are many similar looking species in this family, that it can be very hard to tell them apart. I believe these are mottled beauties because the pattern kind of matches the ones pictured in my ID books. [Edit: Apparently, these were pale oak beauties, which were new to the site.]




















Meadow Grey micro moth (I think)

Finally is this micro moth, which is a meadow grey. At least that's what I've been told it was. Micro moths are very tiny moths. Most of them look very similar to one another. And worst of all, there are hundreds more species to choose from compared to the bigger moths that I have been focusing on up until now. I think I'll leave these micro moths to the experts, I'm having difficulty remembering the names of the bigger ones as it is.