Moth Twitch

Photo by Keith Tailby copyright 2008
Our garden is becoming famous amongst 'Moth Twitchers'. I now regularly catch Pale Lemon Sallow Xanthia ocellaris. This is only a moderately rare moth, but it apparently it rarely turns up at the same spot twice. I get it each year! This year on 27th September, 2 intrepid 'moth-ers' from Leicestershire turned up with about 10 traps and camped out overnight. Initially, things did not look promising...

However, we finally caught 2 specimens. One of these is immortalised above, from Keith's Mothshots website http://www.mothshots.com/

We are TV stars!!!

Well, 'Born to be Wild' was finally on BBC4 on 10th July 2008. It was over a year ago that we filmed it. The production company did a good job and overall it was a pretty good programme.

I have found a review in the Independant which was favourable, including the phrase - 'The attention to detail, especially in Phil Wilkins's beautiful paintings of insects, and ...'

At the top of this post are some of the bee paintings I was working on when they were filming.

Young birds fledging

There has been a lot of activity on the bird front around our garden. Several nest-boxes were used. The young have been feeding away from their nests.
As well as the usual robins, tits and starlings, we have had a few slightly more out-of-the-ordinary fledglings.
For the first year, the swallows nested in our barn. A single bird showed interest last year. A pair returned this year. They laid eggs in the artificial nest, but only one hatched. We were worried about that one at first, but it did fine.
We also found a stock dove chick in our field. It let me approach very close for a photo before flying off. The green woodpecker was on our telegraph pole. It is an adult, I just liked the photo.

We are going to be on TV!!!

Last year the BBC filmed us for a series about amateur naturalists. The programme is finally appearing on BBC4 on the evening of 10th July.
The whole family will be starring (for about 5 minutes) on 'Born to be Wild'.

Fathers' Day

On Fathers' Day I get to choose what we do as a family. So this year on 15th June we headed to Weeting Heath in Norfolk http://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/nature%20reserves/map-links/weeting.htm and Lakenheath RSPB Reserve http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/l/lakenheathfen/index.asp in Suffolk.

The former was for Stone Curlews. We just saw the one, but there was plenty about including nice views of Woodlark and a family of Spotted Flycatcher just by one of the hides. I took a photo of the Drinker Moth caterpillar above. These are quite impressive beasts. They are named after their habit of drinking dew in the mornings from grass.

Lakenheath was a bit wetter, but still plenty about. We did not manage to see the Golden Orioles.

Several Dragonflies about, though, including this Hairy Hawker, Brachytron pratense.

Click for the Forest

This is an interesting site I discovered while surfing.
http://ettklickforskogen.se/index.php?option=com_aclickfortheforest&Itemid=54

The aim is to save ancient 'old growth' Swedish forest.

They have already saved a site located opposite the village of Årrenjaka, close to the Arctic Circle.
They are now attempting to save Verles old growth forest - a 82 hectare site.


The idea is simple - you click on the site and the sponsor pays a donation! You can also buy trees for about £5-£15.

The Bird Fair in August

I will be running a workshop at the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland in August. This will complement the Peregrine Productions stand at the fair.
The workshop is to help novices to start identifying insects. It will be on the Saturday (16th August 2008) and further details are on the Bird Fair website http://www.birdfair.org.uk/

Rumblings of Spring

It has been a while since the last post, so I thought I should put something down!

Spring finally seems to be trying to burst through. This means that Bumble Bees and Butterflies are finally around. We visited my parents in Kent and saw a few Butterflies including a Clouded Yellow at Samphire Hoe, Folkestone. This seemed early to me. The picture of the Clouded Yellow shown here was taken on holiday in Corsica some years ago.

Over the last few days, Beeflies and Anthophora Flower Bees have also been around.

Insects at a Theme Park

On Sunday 30th March, we Tom decided to go to Bewilderwood in the Norfolk Broads for his belated Birthday treat.
This is an 'eco-friendly' theme park in a wood and bog complex. It is based around a theme of some imaginary creatures called 'Boggles' and 'Twiggles' and their adventures. The website is at http://www.bewilderwood.co.uk/. It is not too bad as theme Parks go. The food is pretty good - makes a change!
The weather was much better than it had been the previous week. In fact it was so nice that numerous insects were about. There were at least 5 species of Ladybird - 7-spot, 10-spot, Larch, Pine and Eyed. Also several Brimstone and Peacock butterflies.
Lots of stoneflies were flying. I decided they were Nemoura cinerea. Unfortunately, we did not take a camera.

Easter snow

It's been a while since I posted anything on the blog.

Work has been busy, so not so much time for the important things like wildlife and painting. A snowy Easter caught our cows out - they were not too happy! The children enjoyed it though.

Some Bumble Bees have been out and about prior to this week, so they will hopefully be avoiding the cold snap.

Some insects for a change

The children are rennovating their playhouse in the vegetable patch. At the weekend they found conglomerations of Harlequin Ladybirds Harmonia axyridis. They were obviously overwintering. Further information on this species and its invasion of Britain can be found at http://www.harlequin-survey.org/.
Also in the playhouse were some overwintering Lacewings.

North Norfolk and a Twitch(!)

We went as a family to North Norfolk for a long weekend. The weather was glorious and birdwatching was good. We visited Titchwell RSPB http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/t/titchwellmarsh/index.asp, Snettisham RSPB http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/s/snettisham/index.asp, Cley NWT http://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/nature%20reserves/map-links/cley.htm and Pensthorpe http://www.pensthorpe.com/. We even fitted in time for our second ever twitch - the long staying White-crowned Sparrow at Cley.

As this is supposed to be an insect blog, I will mention the insects we saw. Some 7 spot Ladybirds were around at Snettisham and most sites had various Bumble Bees (Mainly Bombus terrestris, with a few Bombus lucorum).




This cheeky little Robin was in the car park at Titchwell RSPB. It was very tame and came right up to us.

Numerous other birds were around at all the reserves we visited. Lots of Brent Geese, as well as Pink-footed at Snettisham.

Stonechats were much in evidence and we got good views. On the beach at Cley, a birdwatcher kindly pointed out a flock of Snow Buntings to us, much to the children's delight.

Eleanor was practising her filming again and seems to be improving all the time. She got good footage of Redshank, ducks and Egrets, as well as some Marsh Harriers.

We rounded of the trip with a visit to Pensthorpe to see the Cranes and Corncrakes.

Species Champions - Birdlife Preventing Extinctions Programme

As there is not a lot of insect life around at the moment (a few ladybirds today), I thought I would mention the Blue Throated Macaw.

At last year's British Birdwatching Fair in Rutland, money was being raised for Birdlife International's Preventing Extinctions Programme. A frightening number of bird species are threatened with extinction.

Each stand at the Fair was asked to promote a species. Peregrine Production's species was the Blue-throated Macaw, Ara glaucogularis.

More information on this endangered parrot from South America can be found at http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=1548&m=0

Early moths

I put the moth trap out over the night of the 12th-13th January. It was quite mild and I caught this Spring Usher Agriopis leucophaeria as well as a Winter Moth Operophtera brumata.

Plates!!

Over the Christmas period, I tried my hand at a different type of painting - ceramics. Whilst the children painted boxes and ornaments, I did this Jay on a plate. It seems to have come out not too bad, though some things did not work quite as well as I planned them.

The border is not very good and some of the background came out rather strange.

It is not the first plate I have done. Below is a Tiger Beetle I did a few years ago. Both of them show I have a lot to learn before I am happy with this technique!

First big beetle of the year!

We visited Minsmere RSPB Reserve, http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/minsmere/index.asp, as a family on Saturday 5th January. Again, Eleanor was filming. She managed to capture footage of a very tame Muntjac in the picnic area. It took lettuce from our hands while we were eating. She also filmed a male Stonechat and views from the hides.

Walking through the woods, we were looking under logs and found a Devil's Coach Horse, Ocypus olens. Eleanor filmed this running around the ground.

Tom became an expert at finding Goldcrests amongst the Tit flocks, but we did not see the Firecrest that was supposed to be about. Sophie and Tom borrowed some RSPB rucksacks with binoculars in. They were much better than their own binoculars and both of them were observing the birds well. They have both decided Lapwings are one of their favourite birds.

North Warren RSPB reserve

Visited North Warren http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/n/northwarren/index.asp, near Aldeburgh, Suffolk on New Year's Day. My daughter, Eleanor had her new camcorder to practise for her future career in wildlife filming (!)

Despite the cold, a fair amount was about to be immortalised on film. There were a couple of Barnacle Geese amongst the White-fronted Geese. North Warren is one of my favourite RSPB reserves and has a good variety of habitats. I hope to return in the summer for the insects.

We walked further than we anticipated - into Aldeburgh for a chip lunch, followed by ice cream.