#vc17 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #vc17, aggregated by home.social.
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I ran my moth trap for the first time this year. 36 moths of 13 species; the star of the show was a long-awaited first record of The Streamer, but also notable was an Apple Leaf Miner, a full month earlier than my previous earliest record.
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Nothing very exciting in the moth trap last night, but I did get a new species of leafhopper, Tremulicerus vitreus (assuming obsidentify IDed it correctly). Maybe the 29th species of leafhopper from the moth trap? Something like that.
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Here's another new cocktail to celebrate one of the new moths I had in the garden this year.
Light Crimson Underwing
25ml reposado tequila
25ml Lillet Rosé
25ml Campari
1.25ml blue curaçao
orange twistThis is obviously just a tequila Negroni with a dash of blue curaçao to push the red towards crimson.
Clearly it would be barbaric to just use food dye to get the colour, which is why I used Campari and blue curacao, which are just food dye in a convenient booze shaped package.
Anyway, this was excellent, I might prefer it to a classic Negroni.
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A red-letter day at the moth trap, I got Big Blue!
This is the Clifden Nonpareil or, more prosaically, Blue Underwing.
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Some Black Arches action shots from the morning.
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This bit of madness was in the moth trap this morning. Extraordinary looking thing; actually a kind of lacewing.
I’ve put a link to a pic of one with its head showing.
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Feeling a bit frazzled after doing the moth trap this morning.
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I doubled my previous record count of Elephant Hawkmoth in the moth trap last night! (i.e. there were two of them)
Batrachedra pinicolella/confusella was new for the garden but needs dissection to be identified and I fumbled the process of getting it into a pot. Bad news for my garden list, good news for that individual moth, I guess.
#TeamMoth #moths #VC17 #SouthLondon -
The right answer was on there btw, it was a Lime Hawkmoth caterpillar. When they are ready to pupate some caterpillars lose their distinctive colours and get sort of puffy, so it's not the most classic looking example, but it sure as hell isn't an earthworm or a slug, let alone a toad.
#moths #TeamMoth #VC17 -
A respectable night in the moth trap: I make it 76 moths of 32 species.
Brown Scallop was the best record, only my second.
Glamour provided by a couple of Hawkmoths, Elephant and Poplar, and Blue-bordered Carpet.
Mild further interest provided by a Dun-bar which is my earliest record by 11 days. Whoo, so exciting.
#TeamMoth #moths #VC17 #LondonWildlife -
The other interesting arrival was this leafhopper, which seems to be Hishimonus hamatus, an East Asian species with few UK records as far as I can tell (but more in mainland Europe).
#TeamMoth #moths #VC17 #LondonWildlife #insects #leafhoppers
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Big night in the moth trap last night, with two new species for the garden. One is Brown China-mark, quite an attractive moth , and part of a group which is notable for having aquatic caterpillars: they make a little floating case to live in out of a couple of bits of pondweed.
The other, Batia lambdella, is almost identical to the much more common Batia lunaris except twice the size; but I haven't had B. lunaris yet this year, so I was staring at it blankly thinking “I know I’ve had that before… I can’t remember what the name is… something about it doesn’t look right though”.
Anyway I got there in the end.
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This is a fun moth to look for at this time of year, Cauchas fibulella. It's Britain's smallest longhorn moth, and it hangs out during the day on Germander Speedwell flowers.
I've found it before out on the Downs but this is the first time I've found it locally in south London.
#ukmoths #TeamMoth #VC17 #moths -
23 species in the moth trap, which is good for the time of year, but a distinct shortage of the flashier species.
What I mostly had were 34 Tachystola acroxantha. So here's my best attempt at a glamour shot. Bear in mind that it's about the length of my pinkie fingernail.
Tachies were accidentally introduced from Australia, so strewth mate, chuck a tinnie on the barbie, David Boon's moustache, Tim-Tams, bilbies, the Wizard Bombardier of Ballarat etc.
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Not super busy in the moth trap this morning but the first hawkmoth of the year is definitely worth getting out of bed for.
I considering trying to pose the moth actually on the cat, but the risk:reward ratio of ‘cute photo’ vs ‘moth getting eaten’ didn't seem great. -
My first rose chafer of the year. More glamorous but less amusingly-named than its relative the cockchafer, which we don't get around here.
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Not a bad night in the moth trap, starting to move from early spring moths into spring moths proper. Several new for the year, including Frosted Green (not really green), Scorched Carpet (not really a carpet), and this Muslin Moth which lived up to its name by fainting like a Regency debutante.
#moths #TeamMoth #ukmoths #VC17 -
Not a great moth night, I don’t think they appreciated the cold wind. It was mainly a load of Common Quakers so I guess I should just be grateful the trap wasn’t raided by the Metropolitan Police.
#TeamMoth #moths #VC17 #littlebitofsatirethere -
Pretty good moths last night. One new species, Small Brindled Beauty. One which is probably new but might need dissecting to be certain — I think it's either Caloptilia elongella or C. betulicola, either of which would be new for the garden. And I've thrown in a pic of a Dotted Chestnut bc it's pretty.
#moths #TeamMoth #VC17 #ukmoths -
Ooh, I've just noticed that my garden moth list is on the Number Of The Beast. I can reveal that the 666th and thus most satanic species is Plumed Fan-foot, Pechipogo plumigeralis.
Cower before its dark majesty.
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Didn’t make the #Winter10 with this week’s slim #WildFlowerHour pickings, but here are some slightly unseasonable Dandelion (#Taraxacum agg.), Daisy (#Bellis perennis), False Oxlip (Primula × polyantha - probably a garden escape, but naturalised on this bank) and White Dead-nettle (Lamium album). All in #WestSussex #VC13 except the lamium #Surrey #VC17