Osprey at Maxey Pits (30.7.11)

Second best find of the day for me, with an unphotographed Purple Heron winning the honours (Curlew gets bronze)

Curlew at Maxey Pits (30.7.11)

Jethro Tull top ten

I was thinking about my top ten Jethro Tull songs, for no obvious reason, and came up with this bunch off the top of my head (not necessarily in order of preference), which are probably not every body's cup of tea or the most obvious choices for some:

...And the Mouse Police Never Sleeps,
Thick as a Brick (side one),
Dun Ringill,
For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me,
Pibroch (Cap in Hand),
Songs From the Wood,
Black Satin Dancer,
Weathercock,
Flying Dutchman,
And Further On.

What do you reckon?

Garden Migrant Hawker

My first of the year

Coupla scarce moths

Garden Dart (I believe)


Recurvaria nanella (I think)
Here are a couple of moths I think I have correctly identified (but am always up for correction). Garden Dart is scarce these days in VC32 (Northamptonshire and Peterborough), while It hink is VC32's third record of Recurvaria nanella (the first was in 1994 and the second in my garden earlier this year)

Chalkhill Blue and friend

Mystery Moth: Dog's Tooth

Does anyone know what this moth is? It was in my trap in Peterborough (VC32) last night. For scale it is about the size of an upper range Common Rustic. I have a favoured candidate, but don't want to lead the witness(es).
Please help if you can!

STOP PRESS: Mark Hammond has responded to my cry for help on Cammoths and come uop with an ID of Dog's Tooth (which Brian Stone also would like to stake a little claim on). This isa 'Local' species nationally and in VC32.

Another Brown Hawker

Recent moths

Brown-line Bright-eye


Common Rustics and Lesser Common Rustics come in a wide variety of forms, but sadly can't be identified (apparently) by any means other than genital dissection (something I am not at all keen on, as it requires deliberately killing the moth)

Female Poplar Hawk-moth of the buff morph

Fruit and thorn

Early Thorn

Barnack Hills and Holes

Marbled Whites


Small Skipper

Large White

Small Copper

Small Marbled

This scrappy little moth is not a chewed-up micro but a magnificently rare Immigrant macro called Small Marbled. According to the Northants Moths website, one appeared in Northamptonshire (ie VC32) in May 1953 and there hasn't been one since. As it happens, it turned up on 11.7.11, the same night as my two Toadflax Brocades and a Small Ranunculus.

Mounting the Pyramid

Two rare beauties

Toadflax Brocade (RDB) and Small Ranunculus (pRDB)

Toadflax Brocades

The brighter of the two individuals





The less bright individual
Last year, I caught the first Toadflax Brocade for VC32 (Peterborough and Northamptonshire) on 15.8.10. Last night I caught two of the little beauties! When I caught my first it was also new to Cambridgeshire (though in a different vice-county). However, another Cambs garden has turned up caterpillars and this year also adults. Are my moths migrants or is there a local population?

White Satin

White Satin Moth (a 'Local' species)



Swallow Prominent

Phtheochroa rugosana
Three more new moths for the garden

Lovely moths

Small Emeralds

Early Thorn, with Fan-foot

Three Dot Moths...

Privet Hawkmoth

Pebble Prominent

Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

The Snout

Brown-line Bright-eye

Sycamore

Small Ranunculus
Of some 60-odd species of moth trapped last night, 6 macros were new for the garden: Small Emerald (a local species), Early Thorn, Privet Hawkmoth (probably the largest moth I will ever get), Brown-line Bright-eye, Dot Moth and The Snout.