Beacon Wood moths

Beacon Wood Country Park, 23 July 2013.

Once it was a quarry, now it's a country park.  The dappled shade of Beacon Wood is delightfully cool on a hot summer day.  I was there with a group of botanists, but because I have been looking at so many moths in recent months, my eye was caught by a couple of colourful specimens.

Large Emerald, Geometra papilionaria. Beacon Wood Country Park, 19 July 2013.

This one was on a tree trunk, close to the ground.  The botanists were ahead of me and had not spotted it.  To them, it looked like a green leaf among so many others — this isn't a conjecture, one of them told me so.  To me, it was moth-shaped.  And it wasn't easily scared off, so I was able to manoeuvre round it and take this shot from an interesting angle.

Oncocera semirubella.  Beacon Wood Country Park, 19 July 2013.

This one is actually much smaller.maybe 2 cm long.  I spotted it on a matching bramble stem.  It belongs to chalk country, and its caterpillars eat Bird's-foot Trefoil and White Clover, both available here.  The Large Emerald's caterpillars eat Birch, and this site is full of Silver Birch trees.

Both these species were new to me, so I was pleased to add them to my photo library!

Beacon Wood Country Park, 23 July 2013.

The moths were taken with my EOS 6D, and the scenes with my iPhone 5.

Cryptic

Clouded Brindle, Apamea epomidion, on Scots Pine bark.  Hayes, 6 July 2013.

There is something here about making assumptions.   You can see that this Clouded Brindle is very well camouflaged on this bark, and you might think that the crypsis works very well.  But this is the bark of a conifer, and this particular moth is found in deciduous woods and old scrub.  And its eggs are laid on grass.

So the photo is a trick, in a way.  It looks like an example of wonderful nature, but it's really an artificial composition put together for its looks.

It does look good, though!

Coronets

Three Coronet moths, Craniophora ligustri.  Hayes, 2013.

These three moths are the same species, known as the Coronet because of the patterns towards the ends of its wings, which resemble some sort of crown.  These three all settled near, but not in, my garden light trap on different days.   Coronets seem to be doing well this year.

Several species of moth and butterfly are variable.  This one varies in colour, but not in pattern.  Even though the darker ones look almost black to the naked eye, the same markings are all there, and are easily brought out by the camera's flash.

The lighter of these forms looks formidable in close-up.  The scales look like ancient Japanese armour, tabs applied in overlapping layers.

Close-up of Coronet,  Craniophora ligustri.  Hayes, 13 July 2013.

Seven Tortrixes

Tortricidae in the West Wickham Common light trap.  Lozotaenia forsteriana; Green Oak Tortrix, Tortrix viridana;
Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix, Pandemis cerasana.  29 June 2013.

There was a decent catch in the West Wickham Common trap at the end of June - a nice change from the meagre offerings in earlier months.  These three are from the family Tortricidae.

Tortrixes are usually easily recognised because of their shapes.  Some sit flat like this, others with tented wings.  Some are very common - on Sunday I shook the branch of an oak tree and a flock of Green Oak Tortrixes flew out.  They are quite small, mostly between 1 and 2 cm long.

As with many moths named after plants, their caterpillars don't restrict themselves to their namesakes.  The Green Oak Tortrix also eats Beech - though it is very common on Oaks, and the small green caterpillars are often seen dangling by a thread where branches overhang paths.  The Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix will also eat non-fruit trees.  Lozotaenia forsteriana doesn't eat any trees, but lives on Ivy and Honeysuckle, both very common in deciduous woodlands.

Here are four of the tented-wing types from the same trap.

Four Tortrixes.  Celypha striana and Celypha lacunana on the left.  Plum Tortrix, Hedya pruinana, and
Marbled Orchard Tortrix, Hedya nubiferana, on the right.  West Wickham Common light trap, 29 June 2013.

You can see that the two related moths on the left are quite like each other, and two on the right are even more so. 

Celypha striana eats Dandelions.  Celypha lacunana, with its distinguishing silver-grey streaks, eats a range of herbaceous plants.  The two on the right will eat fruit trees, but the Plum Tortrix will also go for Blackthorn and the Marbled Orchard Tortrix likes Hawthorn.

To tell those two apart by eye, look at the dividing line between dark and light.  The Marbled Orchard Tortrix always has two dark dots arranged vertically under the diagonal.  The Plum Tortrix has one or two dots out beyond the diagonal.   These two moths imitate bird droppings,  and can be quite convincing from a little further away than this.