Angle Shades

Angle Shades, Phlogophora meticulosa.  Near my light trap in Hayes on 21 May 2014.
Top view.

This is a very smartly shaped and patterned moth that turned up in my garden for the first time this week.  Looking at it like this, from above, you might wonder how it got its common name.  It doesn't look angular; more scalloped, really.

Angle Shades, Phlogophora meticulosa.  Near my light trap in Hayes on 21 May 2014.
Side view.

But it looks quite angular from the side.  You can also see the surprising display of ruffs.  It doesn't really look like the same creature from this viewpoint, except for the colours.

Near Saltbox Hill

Brimstone, Gonepteryx rhamni, male, on a dandelion.  Monad 4061, 19 May 2014.

So, I was out doing some botanising for the London Flora Project, but I couldn't resist some of the invertebrates that were also out there.  This butterfly looks very like a greenish leaf when it puts its wings up, though it's such a pure yellow from another angle that it has been said that this is where the "butter" part of the name came from.

Cream Wave, Scopula floslactata.  Monad 4061, 19 May 2014.

To my surprise, I saw three different moths along one short path between a small wood and the Saltbox Hill Local Nature Reserve.  This subtly marked Cream Wave, which is rare in light traps, was just resting near the ground.   I caught another smaller and brighter moth in my hand as it fluttered and photographed it in a plastic tube that I usually carry with me for such a possibility.

Alabonia geoffrella.  Oecophoridae.  Caught in my hand in a hedgerow in monad 4061.  19 May 2014.

But it's not all lepidoptera.  I took this last one because it looked good.  It's the developing berry head of a Cuckoo-pint, which I showed the flower of as recently as the end of April.  By now, the leaves are dying back, and these berries will be bright red and vermilion later on.

Developing berries of Cuckoo-pint, Arum maculatum, and blue flowers of Germander Speedwell,
Veronica chamaedrys.  Monad 4061, 19 May 2014.

The blue Germander Speedwell is a common and pretty grassland flower, here joining the Cuckoo-pint under a hedgerow.

West Wickham Moths, May 2014

Light Brocade, Lacanobia w-latinum, and Pale Tussock,  Calliteara pudibunda.
West Wickham Common light trap set on 7 May 2014.

The West Wickham Common light trap is going again!  The ranger who used to live there has moved to a new job, and another man, Barry, has moved into the cottage.  So I am pleased that he has been able to find time among sorting everything out to get the moth trap into action in time for the new season.

It's still quite cool, and there was a low count, 20 moths of 13 species.  But this included plenty of enjoyment.  For example, the two above were very pretty, and the Light Brocade was a pristine, fresh specimen.  The Pale Tussock is from a different family that rests with forelegs held out in front, and you can just see an eye peeping out from between its hairy knees.

Pale Tussock, Calliteara pudibunda forma concolor, playing dead after being moved onto the measuring paper.
West Wickham Common light trap set on 7 May 2014.

This is the dark ("melanic") form of the Pale Tussock, and it's in perfect health.  But it has this trick of playing dead when it seems to be in danger.  When I moved it to the marked paper, it exuded a drop of something unpleasant and lay out like this for about five minutes before getting up and carrying on as usual. 

We also had a smattering of tiny moths, a centimeter or less in length.

Parornix species, Phyllonorycter harrisella, Phyllonorycter quercifoliella.  Leaf miners.
West Wickham Common light trap set on 7 May 2014.

Their caterpillars live and grow inside tree leaves, between the top and bottom layers of the leaf, and the adults are sized in proportion.  You can hardly see any of this detail with the naked eye, but the macro lens brings out lots of variation, which is just as well or I'd never be able to identify them without a bit of dissection.  Even with these photos, I can only get some of them down to genus.

I'll finish with a shot that shows what this difference in sizes means in practice.

Ordinary and melanic forms of the Pale Tussock; two Light Brocades; one Phyllonorycter harrisella.
West Wickham Common light trap set on 7 May 2014.

For any sceptics: that melanic Pale Tussock is the same one as in the photo above, and this was taken after it "revived".

Calyx Krater

Semi-autonomous AE20 of Kyzikos in Mysia.

Here's another of my occasional ancient coin purchases.  I was interested in this one because of the image on the reverse.

It's a coin from Kyzikos (or Cyzicus in a more Latinised spelling), a long-gone town whose ruins are visible at Bal-kiz in Turkey.  The obverse side shows the town's patron deity, KOPH CΩTHIPA, Kore the Saviour, who had a part in the mythical origins of the cycle of the seasons.  She was a goddess of agricultural fertility, and wears a wreath of grain.

On the reverse is a panther with one paw over the mouth of a large vessel.  Many descriptions call this a vase, and that makes me wonder how anyone can look at an image like this and not try to decipher what was supposed to be happening.  Why would a panther paw at a vase?  And there is a very good answer to this question.

It's not a vase.  It's a krater, a large vessel used to mix water with wine for evening drinking parties, symposia.  These were held to mark all sorts of occasions, or just for an evening of fun.  The panther belongs to Dionysos, god of divine intoxication, and it places a paw over the mouth of the vessel to show that the contents belong to the god. 

In a symposium, one man would be in charge of the krater from which everyone would dip their drinks.  He would manage the strength of the mixture so that brilliant conversation flowed, and no-one would get too drunk too quickly.  (That's the theory, anyway!)  If you look at the panther's neck, you will see a collar.  The panther was under control, and perhaps this means that the symposia were also under control.

The text around this image, KYZIKHNΩN, names the coin as coming from Kyzikos.  So this side of the coin seems to be saying that here in Kyzikos, we have plenty to celebrate, and we do it in the proper form.  It might even have been intended to refer to one particular celebrated event.

Quite a few ancient coins show kraters, and some of those have a symbol of Dionysos over the mouth.  But this is the only coin type I have found which shows a calyx krater, so called because its form resembles the calyx of a flower.  Most have the more showy volute kraters, with fancy curling handles rising above the rim.

Chalk Skippers

Grizzled Skipper, Pyrgus malvae.  Burnt Gorse, High Elms Country Park, 5 May 2014.

I wasn't looking for this in particular, but for any interesting invertebrates, but I was very happy to see several small brown butterflies flitting around the chalk grassland at High Elms.   When this one landed and I saw that it was a Grizzled Skipper, I was even happier, because I had never been close to one before.   I even got a quick look at its underwing, though not as close to:

Grizzled Skipper, Pyrgus malvae.  Burnt Gorse, High Elms Country Park, 5 May 2014.

I had been expecting a Dingy Skipper, which is rather similar, but has a lighter brown colour and a less patterned underwing:

Dingy Skipper, Erynnis tages.  Burnt Gorse, High Elms Country Park, 5 May 2014.

There were quite a few of these around as well.  Dingies seem to  be more common, usually, but the bank holiday weekend was obviously a good time for Grizzled.

I had a good morning with the camera, though I had difficulties with reflections from shiny-shelled insects.  I had shiny spots from the flash or from the sunlight, whatever I tried.  Here's a leaf beetle that looks like a ladybird, but isn't:

Leaf beetle, Gonioctena viminalis, on Wayfaring-tree, Viburnum lantana.
Burnt Gorse, High Elms Country Park, 5 May 2014.

It was on a Wayfaring-tree, one of our two native Viburnums.  There were small yellow ladybirds on the same bush:

14-spot Ladybird, Propylea quattuordecimpunctata, on Wayfaring-tree, Viburnum lantana.
Burnt Gorse, High Elms Country Park, 5 May 2014.

I also had a try at capturing the essence of a lane in dappled sunlight, lined with Cow-parsley, sometimes more romantically called Queen Anne's Lace.  Though that name is also applied to Wild Carrot, so I don't use it unless I am trying to romanticise the subject.

Lane full of Cow Parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris.  High Elms Country Park, 5 May 2014.

Here the 100mm macro lens is being used in another way, to foreshorten the view so that the further  banks of flowers don't completely disappear into the distance, while at the same time blurring them so that the close ones stand out and you still get a three-dimensional impression.  (I hope!)

Sevenoaks Moths April 2014

Herald, Scoliopteryx libatrix.  Noctuidae.  Moth trap at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 27 April 2014.

Moths are out in numbers again!  I went to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve to look at April's monthly trap results.  We didn't expect much, as the nights are still quite cold, but there were half a dozen pretty creatures, including this Herald.

Herald, Scoliopteryx libatrix.  Noctuidae.  Moth trap at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 27 April 2014.

I have seen some of these before, overwintering in a cave, but not in a light trap until one turned up in my garden a week or so ago.  It's interesting that species seem to appear in the whole area, not just locally.  Sevenoaks is half an hour's drive from my place.

Brimstone Moth, Opisthograptis luteolata.  Geometridae.  Moth trap at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 27 April 2014.

Brimstone Moths are quite common, but I can't resist nice fresh specimens like this one.  They are so bright and pretty.

Lesser Swallow Prominent, Pheosia gnoma.  Notodontidae.  Moth trap at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 27 April 2014.

The Lesser Swallow Prominent is nicely marked and easy to recognise.  As with the other Notodontidae, its furry forelegs are sprawled out in front.

Red Twin-spot Carpet, Xanthorhoe spadicearia.  Geometridae.  Moth trap at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 27 April 2014.

This one was on the woodwork above the trap and was spotted by the warden, Susanna Clerici, who I am, in theory, helping out by doing this. (She thanks me, but really I should - and do - thank her for the opportunity.)  It's actually very similar to another species, the Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet, and I should not be so confident about naming it without getting its genitalia under a microscope, but the Red Twin-spot Carpet is much more common.

Nut-tree Tussock, Colacasia coryli forma medionigra.  Noctuidae.
Moth trap at Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, 27 April 2014.  No flash.

I took this photo without flash, something I have been trying on moths recently to see if I can get more natural colours.  I can't use a really small aperture with only natural light available, and so I lose some depth of field, but this shot works quite well despite that.  If I used a tripod and could guarantee that my subjects would not fly away, I could get sharper wingtips!

I find that when I put photos on Blogspot they sometimes lose some saturation, which I can see in the first photo above. This is odd, and it can't be just my screen doing it because I am using the same screen to see both images.  I toned down the red a bit in Photoshop to stop my finger from taking over the whole picture, but not to the extent it now appears.  Blogspot has accentuated my tweak.

Anyway .. there were two Brimstones, so that was a total of six very nice moths for the April count.

Bramble Bank Goodies

Wasp Beetles, Clytus arietis, on Bramble, Rubus fruticosus agg.  West Wickham Common, 30 April 2014.

I was walking my butterfly transect on West Wickham Common and I stopped to look at a bramble bank that often has small wildlife for me to photograph.  I was pleased to see a stripey beetle almost at once.  And even more pleased when I saw that there were two of them, quite oblivious of me and my big camera.  These Wasp Beetles are quite showy and not hard to spot.

Close by was a small swarm of moths with long, long antennae.  Such moths are called Longhorns, and there are a couple of common species.  The males' antennae hold the sense organs that detect the female's pheromones.  They would not hold still long enough for a photo, but the female was there too, resting on a leaf.

Adela reamurella.  Female.  West Wickham Common, 30 April 2014.

This species can look bronze or greenish.  The scales that reflect golden in the camera's flash can seem almost black without it, unless they catch the sun.  It looks hairy and untidy close to, but the dancing swarm of long-horned males is delightful in the sunshine.  In fact, here is a link to part of just such a swarm of Adela reamurella that I caught with a small camera way back in 2011.

Near the swarm, also on a leaf, something just caught my eye ...

Crab Spider, Diaea dorsata.  West Wickham Common, 30 April 2014.

A crab spider, waiting for something to come close enough to be snatched.  The green colour was a perfect match for the leaf and I wonder why it is not all the same colour.  Other crab spiders can be.  Look at that turret of eyes.  Nothing above or around this creature is going to go unnoticed.

That wasn't all - as I was walking away I saw a small horde of Dock Bugs among the foliage.

Dock Bugs, Coreus marginatus.  West Wickham Common, 30 April 2014.

While I am showing a bramble bank, I will add a beetle I saw on the nearby Hayes Common, also on bramble.

Cantharis decipiens. Hayes Common, 27 April 2014.

Like other beetles, Catharis decipiens just looks shiny to the naked eye, yet close to it is quite a hairy beast.

So there is plenty of activity in the undergrowth!