The Neglected (blog)

It's not that I've not been out in the field finding things, it is that I am completely overwhelmed. Just about every time I walk out of the door I bump into something new. Most things take a while to process - photograph, edit the photos, work through the identification and if I can't do it go back and find the species again, perhaps taking a specimen, then keying through with the reference and the microscope. There are quite a few things awaiting dissection.

The garden list is currently 228 species, which I think is pretty respectable in that it is about the size of a tennis court, and that has been achieved in just over two months. There are a fair number of things pending further investigation.

Last night I put the light traps out and it quickly became very busy. About 80 species of moths, I'm still working on the photos and there are a few specimens I will need to dissect. There were four species of beetle and yet again I chose to ignore the caddis. I have taken a few to do over the winter but the caddis as well, a step too far!

Athripsodes bilineatus, well ok, I have done some caddis, the easy ones.

I finally added Sparrowhawk to the Patch list, it narrowly missed the garden list. Equally, Roe Deer hasn't quite made it on to the garden list, although I bet the buck's nose crossed the fence-line as he snaffled the raspberries the other morning. Perhaps I could add him. And a cheeky Red Squirrel has sat on the fence across the access track.

Louise and I went up to a consultation at Loch Turret the other Saturday. It's a very lovely area. The whole Glen Turret Estate was sold and bought by the Kith Trust and Edinburgh University, with the Kith Trust holding the significant majority of the land. Edinburgh University have published a broad outline of their ideas; we were somewhat suspicious. (There is, and has been for a while now, a "land grab" in Scotland by the exceedingly rich, much of which results in impacts on local communities and (most often) negatively on the environment. Much of this is funded by Scottish Forestry grants - actually, Scottish tax payers' money - money that often heads south of the border to line share holders' pockets. Hopefully, at the next Scottish election we might be able to vote in a Scottish Government that is properly understanding of what is going on and that is prepared to radically alter Scottish Forestry's modus opperandi and properly fund and empower NatureScot to do their job. But don't get me started....) However, this development looks generally positive, we shall see. The two personnel at the event were knowledgeable and answered our questions in a manner that led us to feel positive about the scheme, a good start. Information can be found here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/sustainability/operations/forest-peatland click the Barvick Burn tab for the information currently available on the Loch Turret scheme.

Green Pug, new for the garden, I've seen it before occasionally.

Grey Dagger (Dark Dagger does not occur in Scotland), nice for the garden, they were quite common in Orkney.

Anelosimus vittatus a brand new spider for me.

Athous haemorrhoidalis, not a new species but I was quite pleased with the photo.

Yarrow Plume, a new species for me.

I was very, very pleased to find this Larch Ladybird at the Community Woodland.

I did a bit of tree maintenance at the Community Woodland on Sunday. Finding planted trees and clearing the bracken from them. I didn't get too distracted by insects as there wasn't much about on the day for some reason. On the previous visit I'd found the above Larch Ladybird, a species I've been searching for for a while.

A very nice moth or two from last night, I'll post some more shortly (honest).

Catropia falsella

Double-striped Pug.

Juniper Pug, well chuffed with this.

Pyrausta purpuralis

Darned Scoparia/Eudonia things!

This post kicks off with a whole pile of these ghastly Crambids which are a pain to identify. Any help would be very much appreciated. I'll likely take a good few samples for dissection, I have one or two in the fridge. However, if you know what any of these are, or can confirm or correct my presumptive identifications please do comment below (if you don't want to comment publicly please FB Message me, or email.). Please refer to the #numeral and apologies for these being out of order. Many, many thanks. The more I look at these the more confused I become, on the whole!

#2 Eudonia mercurella

#1 Eudonia mercurella Corrected Eudonia lacustrata.

#4 Eudonia truncicolella or lacustrata

# 3 Eudonia truncicolella

#5 Eudonia mercurella, corrected to Scoparia ambigualis

#6 Eudonia pyralella Corrected to Scoparia ambigualis.

In other business Spotted Flycatcher is becoming regular in the garden. I've seen both Osprey and Kingfisher again on the patch. Interestingly, the Common Gulls have disappeared and Lesser Black-backed Gulls are regularly around 30, stealing the sheep feed.

Elephant Hawk-moth was nice (and easy to identify) in the traps on election night, when the rain came in earlier than expected, so I didn't catch much in total.

Elephant Hawk-moth.

And Clouded Buff was exceptionally nice.

Clouded Buff.

I've dissected three minors Oligia sp as they are not reliable from external characters.

All were females, and one dissection my solution was a bit strong and everything of use disappeared. But the other two worked and proved Marbled Minor.

Marbled Minor, female.

Most valuable record of the week; I poked about in Oak Trees and in a spider's web found a long dead "thing". I thought it was an Ichneumon, but on sticking it under the microscope found it was a cranefly that mimics Ichneumons. Not only that it was nationally scarce Ctenophora pectinicornis. According to NBN mine, when verified, will be the most northerly UK record, rather chuffed.

Bits of long deceased Ctenophora pectinicornis.

I'm still battling with botany! And it helps with finding interesting insects. Here's today's find.

Grypocoris stysi.

The dog and I were nearly taken out by, or maybe nearly took out about eight cyclists, as we were in the verge/road edge when taking the photos. It could have been rather messy. In the garden, on the Buddleia was another addition to my spider list (and garden list). I'm still slowly adding things to my PSL. I think I've got enough here to claim Araniella cucurbitina.

Cucumber Spider, Araniella cucurbitina, the genitalia don't seem to stick out enough for the very similar confusion species, A. opisthographa.

 

Post-covid

Having managed to avoid this very unpleasant, and sometimes tragically serious, illness for all these years I seem now to be in the recovery phase of a bout. Whilst whatever variant we are now dealing with is unpleasant it is fortunately not as serious an illness as it once was. I'm not very good at being unwell though and a large dose of grumpiness has accompanied the fever. Activity has been considerably reduced. Follows a set of substandard images from the light traps as I can't be bothered to edit them properly, and they'll do for iRecord.

Angle Shades.

Barred Red

Brussels Lace

Buff-tip

Coxcomb Prominent

Foxglove Pug

Light Emerald

Mottled Beauty

Peacock

Scalloped Shell

Small Clouded Brindle (NFM)

Tawny Barred Angle (NFM)

The one light trapping session produced more than 40 moth species. There are a few micro and macro dissections to do to complete the list. A Bryotropha, a Coleophora and a Dicrorampha being the micros needing dissection. A couple of "Minors" require dissection for the macro list.

 A late Northern Cockchafer headed the beetle list.

Showing the tooth on the 3rd antennal segment.

Northern Cockchafer Melolontha hippocastani just prior to take off,.

Male appendage.

I thought this was probably quite a late record for this species. There have been a few other beetles, a good few awaiting my attentions as I haven't much felt like setting up the photos and doing fiddly dissections.`

Orange Ladybird Halzia sedecimguttata.

The weevil Otiorhynchus singularis

 The Orchid Beetle turned up in the garden.

Orchid Beetle Dascillus cervinus

There were some water beetles in the light traps, which I need to tackle, Ceutorhynchus typhi was on the kitchen window ledge and I came across a Malthodes in a nearby verge. I did have a go at this that keyed to Malthodes flavoguttatus, but it was a female so the outcome is I believe slightly in doubt.

Malthodes, female, feasibly flavoguttatus.

I've been working on the plant list within the garden, not the cultivars, the plants that can reasonably be considered to be wild. So far the list is 46 but there are a couple or three grasses that I'm struggling with.

Recovering from covid I've sat about in the garden a fair bit. Spotted Flycatcher sat briefly on the gate and the behaviour of the Robins was interesting. Every-now-and-then taking a break from feeding the offspring by sunbathing and preening.

Robin

Not wishing to pass the covid on I didn't go to the pre-meeting for the hustings which are taking place here on Monday. I would like to vote Labour, and maybe I will, but the important job in this constituency is to keep the Tories out so I may have to vote SNP, just to be sure. It would be nice if we can have no Tory MPs at Westminster for Scotland. For various reasons, including not supporting independence, I'm not a great fan of the SNP. However, I have voted for them in the past. In our elections, where there is proportional representation for the Scottish Parliament, it is worth voting Green (despite Scottish Greens being a pro-independence party), but for Westminster, "Kick out the Tories" is the order of the day. The whole Reform situation is very concerning in England, they won't get many votes here, thankfully. There are some useful comments on the various manifestos on the Wild Justice website - https://wildjustice.org.uk/general/our-general-election-guest-blogs-an-introduction-index-and-reference-point/