The Grand Total of sleep I got last night was three hours.
I'll just say that again: THREE hours.
I woke up at 1, eventually gave up trying to get back to sleep at 4.15, got up, did some work on next week's lecture, went outside, potted some moths that were asleep beside the box and set the camera to record the Dawn Chorus from silence into full-throated noise. That worked well- the owls fade out into blackbirds and it gradually gets light on the camera. I haven't uploaded it yet because I only got three hours sleep.
I went back to bed at 5, M left for woke at 5.30 and I dropped off about 6, woke for the alarm at 7.15, rolled over and fell back asleep and then woke with a start at 8.35 in a blind panic because we normally leave for school just after eight!
I couldn't bring myself to admit to school I'd overslept - I had visions of 'incompetent parent who doesn't take son's education seriously' being scrawled beside my name, so wrote a vague: it was entirely my fault L was late type note and left it at that. He. of course thought the whole thing was hilarious, although I have to say I've never seen him move so fast- we were up, dressed and in the car on the way in under ten minutes, so now I know he can do it....
It's been fairly lousy moth wise the last few days because the temperature at night has dropped away steeply. I put the box out last night, not expecting much, it has to be said, so I was amazed at the species that were waiting for me this morning.
The prominents have arrived in force, with Swallow and Lesser Swallow, Great and Pebble all represented. There was a lovely delicate Muslin moth, a beautiful Lunar Marbled Brown, an unexpected Frosted Green, a Shuttle-shaped Dart and a Sallow Kitten, which was a huge shock as it's a couple of weeks ahead of normal arrival time. The Kitten moths are some of my absolute favourites, so it was a real treat to see him (even though I had to fridge him to get the pic as he was busy, busy, busy in the pot :o)
Here they are for you to enjoy...
Brindled Beauty
Frosted Green
Great Prominent
Great P
Lesser Swallow Prominent
Lunar Marbled Brown
May Bug in April
Muslin Moth
Pebble Prominent
Sallow Kitten
Shuttle-Shaped Dart
Swallow Prominent
I'm off to get some sleep :o) I'll leave you with the crescent moon and a Goldfinch in Thoughtful Mood....
The Cuckoos are back in droves (well, sort of) and they are already driving me to distraction with their endless 'cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.' They are the first bird to kick off in the morning (dawn chorus now 5am), and they keep it up on and off throughout the entire day, and are often the last ones to fall quiet before the wols take over as night falls. I know their numbers are falling so I do try hard not to get cross with them, but, let's face it, cuckoos aren't exactly adventurous souls when it comes to experimenting with their vocal range are they? Having said that, the Great Tits give them a Run For Their Money. I have a constant opera of 'dee do do, dee do do, dee do do' going on in the background all day long too :o)
Here, just for you, is one of the Cuckoos, with an overlay of Great Tit for good measure. Offer me sympathy...
I'm waiting for the lady Cuckoos to start up, because they do have Interesting Singing Voices. They make a noise that's completely different from their husbands ; they sound like an enormous amount of bath water going down the plug hole all at once in a Great Big Rush. I will try and record that for you too, when it starts :o)
Cuckoo's aside, life is progressing well here at the mo. The sun shines, the birds sing, the flutters, well, flutter, and dragons have begun eclosing from the pond. Now, I knew the nymphs could crawl and climb up to a metre away from their pond, but I've never seen one go this far before....
Note the distance between the pond on the right (where the rough ground is) and the bench on the left. Its a Good Walk for a Small Person.
And now note the blob on the wooden bit of the wall, which starts just under the top of the bench (that came out a bit gobbled, but hopefully you know what I meant)....
The blob is a Broad-Bodied Chaser Dragonfly (see below for more clarity), freshly eclosed out of its nymph case (or, if you want to be posh about it exuvia) at ten of the clock this fine morning. In the pic below you'll see it is holding on to the case while its wings fill up with liquid making them fly-worthy. This process takes about four hours (I timed it last year with this particular species, so I know)....
In a few days it will be a powder blue colour.
I found an old nymph case (exuvia) floating in the pond the other day and hoiked it out to show you. It is the long one in the pic below. The other one is this morning's empty exuvia after the dragon had flown off. Dragonflies live most of their lives underwater in the larval or nymph stage - during this phase (usually lasts a couple of years) they moult up to 15 times into bigger nymphs. The one I found looks like close to the final stage to me- possibly the one before what was left stuck to my wall this morning. They are aggressive and will give you a sharp nip if you pick them up in the water...
Here are some close ups of this morning's empty exuvia. The first pic shows the hole in the back the dragon emerged from, the middle one its face (I particularly like the eyes), and the third its underside. Amazing things, don't you think?
Dragons aren't the only creatures emerging from the pond- we've got a full-scale Small Red Damsel emergence going on too. They too leave the pond in their nymph stage and crawl up the nearest piece of sturdy vegetation before eclosing out and then hanging on to the case while their wings become functional. The Reds also emerge pale and the colours deepen into a gorgeous rich claret over a few days, as demonstrated below. The first shot is of an empty nymph case found on the iris, and the second shows a recently eclosed damsel from this morning. The third pic is of a damsel who has been out and flying for a day or two. I love the gold bands on the tip of its tail....
The dogs found all this Birth Stuff Quite Exhausting, and flopped out by the pond after our early morning walk through the bluebell woods (pics of those to follow in a few days). Pop seems to have done something to her back leg, but as she won't tell me what it'll be a trip to the V.E.T tomorrow if it isn't better. Teddy will worry about that and Poppy will enjoy it (and that tells you all you need to know about their characters in a nut shell).
Common Carder Bees are still enjoying the Bugle, something small and for now unidentifiable is enjoying the mossy saxifrage and honey bees are all over the apple blossom like there's no tomorrow....
I did get some actual work done today- I'm giving a class-based ID session to the first year ecology students next week on butterflies and moths, so I went over to the college transect to get some useful ID photos at the same time as doing a flutter survey. I managed to get a sequence of pictures of two Brimstones mating. They are a little less than perfectly crisp, but I'm still chuffed with them. The female is on the bluebell while the male is fluttering about seductively (in a butterfly kind of way :o) )...
This is a clearer shot of a female Brimstone, and below that her mate, the original butter-coloured fly that gives the group its common name...
Also out on the transect (well, under the tin refugia) were slow worms. I LOVE slow worms, and have been checking the tins religiously for the past month for them. I found two this week. Dear little creatures....
Small tort flutters are still around...
And I had a Close Encounter with this female Roe deer, who wandered right past me through the clearing Quite Oblivious of my presence...
Blackthorn (sloe) is out everywhere...
And the Cherry deep in the wood is also looking magnificent. Isn't the blossom fab this year?
Bright yellow fields of oilseed chequer the countryside round about. It's pretty, but a bit too vibrant for me...
Cowslips, foodplant for the rare Duke of Burgundy flutters, are more my kind of thing and are coming out in carpets on the Chalk.....
Some people Absolutely Love them... The person in the pic below is my favourite, the Bee Fly. This is Quite Possibly the best pic I've ever taken of one- I waited ages for the shot and got an awful lot of rubbish ones before these. I love the way he's holding the lid of the flower with all four feet like a kind of elf hat :o)
Well, I think that's just about it for today, There is Masses Going On Outside, which I love, and I also have plenty to do indoors, so I'll stop there and hope you enjoyed all of these lovely creatures. I'll get the Moth Box out again before long too- it won't be long before the moths become brightly coloured and interestingly shaped :o) It's still a wee bit cold here at night at the mo (a frost is forecast tonight), but hopefully in the next couple of weeks as April turns into May some of the real beauties of the Moth World will start to appear.
Hope all are well, and thanks for bearing with a slightly longer than anticipated post!
