Over the past couple of weeks, I've had some good interesting walks with Lisa, and also on my own. Lisa and I do try to stick reasonably local when we can, so the car can be left at home. One of the delights of living just a couple of minutes walking distance away from the South Downs.
This week, which was towards the end of Lisa's summer break, she had work to get on with, in preparation for her dance classes, so I headed out on my own up to my local wildlife patch.
As I headed up the hill I was pleased to see a couple of Common Redstart, a species I sometimes see in the autumn as they migrate south. A definite sign of autumn!! Ivy Bees were also very evident along with good numbers of fresh Red Admiral.
After seeing a handful of tatty Wall Brown last week, I was expecting that I might see a 3rd brood one in great condition. Just as I reached the top of the hill, I had a fresh male Wall Brown flying around me, and then a few minutes later, around the other side of the hill, another one was also flying. I didn't see any of the tatty 2nd brood though.
I'm trying to find evidence that my colony of Lace Border here also have a 3rd brood. The past 2 seasons have given me reason to believe that this is the case, although all the books say that they only have 2 broods in the UK, but after a couple of blank searches in the latter part of August, a sudden increase in the moths, which has happened over the past 2 seasons in September, would point even more to this happening here. With 4 Lace Border seen on this day, I'm hoping that this is the start of a 3rd brood. But I really need a bigger increase than that, but time will tell. Last year I had a count of 30 moths in mid September, of this very rare and beautiful insect.
Lace Border.
Whilst I was searching, I was very surprised to find another rarity in the form of the micro moth Oncocera semirubella. Also known as Rosy Knot-horn and commonly as Rhubarb and Custard, for obvious reasons, given the colour of this little beauty. This was the first time I've found this species on the patch, although I have had a couple in the moth trap before, as well as seeing them in Transylvania before. I wonder if this moth has started to breed on the hillsides, as the larval foodplants are in the area.
Oncocera semirubella. (Rosy Knot-horn).
Some years ago, Pete gave me a couple of potted Willow trees, which I keep on the garden patio. The idea is that I hope to get Hawk-moths laying eggs on the trees, as well as some other interesting moths. A couple of years ago I had 2 Poplar Hawk-moth larvae on the narrow leaved version, and also Grey Dagger larvae. This year though, it has come into its own as I've now had 3 Herald moth larvae. These have also all pupated among the leaves on the tree. One did actually hatch out 2 days ago on a very wet day, with such bad light I didn't actually photograph it. A few weeks ago, I also had a Pebble Prominent larva. This was a very bizarre looking larva. Hopefully it pupated somewhere nearby.
Pebble Prominent larva.
This week, when we were having breakfast, I spotted a green larva walking along the back of one of the garden chairs. When we finished breakfast, I went outside to investigate, thinking it was going to be an Angle Shades larva, which is the most common larva which is green and often found in gardens. I was surprised however, to see it was a young Poplar Hawk-moth larva. After calling Lisa out to see it, I thought the obvious thing would be to place it on the narrow leaved Willow so it could feed. As I was placing it on the tree, Lisa spotted another 2 of the larvae. We then looked a little harder at the tree and found 14 of them!!
Young Poplar Hawk-moth larva.
When I had the 2 larvae of this species a couple of years ago I found that UV light really shows them up after dark, so that night we got the UV torch out and searched again. They were now much easier to see as they glowed in the dark, and a recount produced 17 of them. Since then, one has died, but the other 16 are, as of last night, surviving and growing quickly. I may have to move some on eventually as I doubt there are enough leaves on the small tree to support all of them!!
Last weekend Lisa and I went up to Ashdown Forest, hoping mainly to see Black Darter dragonflies, a species that has possibly vanished now from the area. I last saw them here in 2021, but sightings since then have been very poor, with only one apparently seen in 2023. We didn't get lucky unfortunately with Black Darter, or indeed, the Green Huntsman spiders, that I was also hoping to see. Lisa spotted a juvenile Raft Spider, and after continuously searching the extensive Heather, we were about to give up and come home, when I spotted the other creature I was hoping to show Lisa, the beautiful larva of the appropriately named Beautiful Yellow Underwing. This larva was only half grown, which was a surprise as I have found them earlier than this several times, almost fully grown. It did however, look sublime as it fed amongst the purple Heather.
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Beautiful Yellow Underwing feeding on Heather.
The other species we saw several of was the Southern Hawker. We both wasted a lot of time trying to get flight photos of them, with very limited success!!
Male Southern Hawker in flight.
As autumn progresses, the camera is likely to be used less. However, long walks over the downs become more comfortable in the cooler conditions, as well as having lighter back packs without loads of camera gear!!