Cute

 The cold weather and my adjusted feeding regime have led to a new regular visitor to the garden.

Red Squirrel, actually just out of the garden but a regular visitor in the last couple of weeks.

This species is undeniably cute. We usually have one, but occasionally two turn up. The Bank Voles continue to be active in the wall by the feeders, and pretty much everywhere else, I if I take the time to look. Less welcome are the mice in the garage. These are probably Wood Mouse, deployment of the camera trap may be required, indeed deployment of live traps to remove the wee beasties may have to be considered. Roe Deer have only once made it into the garden but are regular close by and Red Deer are a possibility, I'd probably need to leave a tempting snack on the grass.

More cold weather and an accidental spill of nyjer seed brought 49 Chaffinch into the garden. One new species for the patch has been Lapwing, Sparrowhawk sightings are more frequent and Redwing are a constant presence although the Fieldfares seem to have moved through. The kite roost probably continues to include upwards of 80 birds, but counting them is not the easiset. And Woodpigeon numbered a record day count, with a single flock of 350+ the highlight.

Bullfinch, these have been feeding around the garden in the cold.

More delving in the fridge produced some interesting and new moths. I'd caught a couple of ear moths in September. Despite being macros the dissections of these are not necessarily definitive. The four species can be paired and habitat and distribution are helpful. One of these was a male and certainly Large Ear Amphipoea luscens. The other was a female and somewhat confusing as a feature highlighted on Moth Dissection is said by Chris Lewis (British Lepidoptera) to be difficult and perhaps unreliable. In the end I decided that on the balance of characters, distribution and habitat it had also to be A. luscens but it was a useful lesson in figuring these out.

Female genitalia Amphipoea luscens.

Amphipoea luscens, female, I believe.

Male Amphipoea luscens Large Ear.

A. luscens, male gendet, no doubt about this one, although there could have been fewer bubbles in the prep'.

There were a couple of micros to work out as well. A somewhat worn, tiny white beast puzzled me, but the AI gave me a 100% certainty for Elachista maculicerusella. Checking in the books proved this to be correct so I didn't bother to dissect it. Reed Canary Grass Leafminer is, I think, the new colloquial name for this species.

Elachista maculicerusella.

The other micro proved to be more troublesome, I initially thought it was a Coleophora species but when I posted it with its dissection online I was helped to the correct family and fairly soon to an identification of Ypsolopha ustella (thanks BS). This would be the 7th VC record of this species, so well worth dissecting.

Male gendet Ypsolopha ustella.

Ypsolopha ustella male.

A couple of water beetles were identified, the best of which was the distinctive, but apparently not especially common Strictonectes lepidus.

Strictonectes lepidus.

In this period I also had a bit of a mooch around the White Church cemetery, and found a few fungi. It will be worth further exploration I suspect. At the moment the photos are evading me. So some pictures from around the patch instead.

Out of the fridge.

It's been fridge-like weather-wise, days and nights of clear skies and sub-zero temperatures, then a big fall of snow, and now back to the cold again. I had to go to Gleneagles station in the snow, someone had a train booked for London. Little problem getting there, but getting home again was an adventure with other vehicles stuck and skidding all over the place. Thankful for the RAV4s capabilities, I navigated the chaos (and managed to help one or two others on the way).

Garden with snow, not inclined to sit outside with a coffee and cake.

In the woods.

The snow did produce Brambling for the garden, and only the second patch record.

Online, Birdtrack has been down for a few days and Naturespot went missing (temporarily), as did UK Beetles (and that might be permanent). One hopes a new and affordable host can be found for UK Beetles as it is a site full of invaluable information. Unfortunately, when I checked, the Wayback Machine had saved only a small fraction of the site.

I've been pulling stuff out of my specimen fridge/freezer to identify, the weather not being conducive to insect finding.

First off this Staphy I found on the garage wall a few weeks ago. It looks like a small Ocypus olens, so I went to the key for Ocypus/Tasgius and got horribly confused. In the end I decided a dissection was required, to be certain. I remembered I'd found that bit of the key confusing in the past. Without UK Beetles to check with I headed over to the excellent Danish site, which fortunately had images of the aedaegus as well. Useful as for once the illustrations in Lott are not entirely definitive to my eye.

Tasgius melanarius, the commonest one, but I'd not found it before.

Good job it was a male, aedaegus image checked out against the Danish image. And when I posted it Harald S very quickly confirmed the ID (many thanks Harald).

Next up were a couple of Carabidae from a river gravel sample from back in May, just after we got here. These should have been straightforward, but that was only half true. And then there was some fascinating biology.

The first one was easy, Paranchus albipes is so distinctive, and I can only think I took a sample just to prove it for a new locality (for me). However, it turned out that was a very good decision.

Paranchus albipes, but what's that on the corner of the pronotum?

I usually ignore these fungi poking out of beetle elytra and elsewhere. However....

The other beetle turned out to be Ocys sp. A new genus for me. It keyed to Ocys harpaloides, but putting it into iRecord the species predictor suggested O. harpaloides agg. Mmmm, web search required, what's going on? The web search turned up an interesting issue, that until 2016 Ocys harpaloides was a straightforward identification, and then some researchers found we'd been getting it wrong and perhaps they were not O. harpaloides at all but a similar species Ocys tachysoides. Indeed, most identified since that publication have turned out to be the "new" species O. tachysoides and O. harpaloides is actually rather hard to find. I then remembered I'd stumbled across this before in my web meanderings on Beetles FB Group. Dissection required, see below. Most interesting and back to the Paranchus and its wee parasitic growth was a paper that popped out of the web search showing that these tiny fungal parasites of beetles are identifiable by identifying the beetle species. Each beetle species has been shown to generally only host one species of fungi, although the fungi may parasitise more than one beetle species. Only two beetle species have been found (so far) to host more than one species of fungi so identify your beetle and if the fungi is present there is a bonus species lurking there!

In the case of Paranchus albipes it is host to Laboulbenia flagellata.

Both Ocys species host the same fungus, Laboulbenia vulgaris, which was present on my specimen.

And as expected my Ocys specimen turned out to be the "new" species Ocys tachysoides, which should probably only be identified to species by dissection.

Smaller ones, less than maybe 5.8mm with this contrast between uniformly dark elytra and pale brown pronotum should usually be Ocys tachysoides (mine was 5.2mm). Same beetle just two different photographic techniques, top one down the microscope, bottom one stacked macro image.

Female genitalia, Ocys tachysoides.

In particular the shape of the spermatheca is distinctive.

And here are the parasitic growths of Laboulbenia vulgaris, not the best image in the world....

One more little episode to be added, perhaps in the next post..

Next out of the fridge was this beetle which I struggled with because the first tarsal segments are tiny, so I counted 4-4-4 when they were 5-5-5. After messing about in the Nitidulidae keys and failing to get anywhere I used Obsidentify which identified the beetle correctly immediately. I then worked it through the correct Dermestidae key and came out at the same answer, Attagenus pellio, Two-spotted Carpet Beetle.

Two-spotted is a bit of a misnomer as it has at least five spots, if not seven and three are quite obvious.

The species has no certain records for Scotland on the NBN, is an adventive, but is generally found outside on flowers. I did find it inside the house but this was a period when the kitchen window ledge was collecting quite a few insects as we were having the back door open a lot of the time. ID confirmed by Max B, thanks Max. I suspect the NBN is out of date, but I'll try to find out more.

Library business

A lack of posts is attributable to a community emergency, the county council, its elected representatives and its ALEO (Arms-Length External Organisation) have decided to close our village library, and those of six or seven other rural communities in Perthshire. Whilst the County Council have brayed about the information related to these closures being "in the public domain" since the decision was made back at the end of last year it appears that elected representatives have been somewhat circumspect in their duties to inform the communities via the community councils. The long and short of this is that the proposal to close the libraries only became public knowledge following the ALEO issuing a wonderfully obtuse survey to library users, not actually mentioning the intention to close the library. This is a situation occurring all across Scotland, in one form or another, and I believe across England, although perhaps not managed in such an apparently underhand manner. I've been writing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and then trawling through the outcomes to try to get at the details of the decision making process and the finances.

Save Comrie Library From Closure!

The creation of ALEOs, hiving off, "non-essential" services like libraries, museums, art galleries, sports centres and swimming pools, has become common practice amongst local authorities across the UK. In the case of Perth and Kinross Council these were created in 2016 and in my opinion the intention  was always to create a buffer between the council and the electorate to prepare for cutting these services. One reason for the creation of ALEOs is that they may then apply for external funding that is not available to local authorities. However, in reality this is truly a bit of a smokescreen given the monies involved and how difficult it is to obtain such external funding in the climate of the former slash and burn Westminster Tory government. Whilst the Scottish Government and the Barnett Formula might attempt to provide a buffer to try to protect some Scottish services, for this particular ALEO to somehow come up with nearly £1,000,000 (Bank of England inflation calculator) to hold its funding at 2016 levels is unrealistic. Initial budget funded by Perth and Kinross Council in 2016 c£3,400,000 (worth c£4,500,000 in today's money), latest service fee from the council to the ALEO in April 2024 was c£3,500,000. 

There is some interesting research by UEA carried out on Suffolk libraries demonstrating that for every £1 spent on library provision the economic benefit is about £6. I'm struggling to find the URL for this, but will post it here when I do. I have an electronic copy that I'm happy to share though if anyone would like one.

That was a bit of a long aside.... I must try to post more often but more briefly, it would be easier.

On the wildlife front species are still getting added to the various lists. I had a good fungi day on Saturday adding five species from Loch Monzievaird, near Crieff and from Glen Artney where I stumbled across three new waxcaps in just a few metres whilst out on a mountain bike excursion.

Both the above are Hygrocybe coccinea Scarlet Waxcap, just older (top) and more recent (lower).

Hygrocybe chlorophana Golden Waxcap.

Vermillion Waxcap Hydrocybe miniata. (Older ones had a rough surface to the cap, a useful pointer.)

There were also some quite spectacular funnels at the same site which I'm pretty sure are Trooping Funnel Clitocybe geotrupa.

Clitocybe geotropa Trooping Funnel. 

The whole issue with identifying fungi is a bit fraught, I'm doing the best I can with them but I feel the identifications are less rigorous than with other taxa. I'm thinking I should go back through iRecord and put most as "Likely" rather than "Certain" as without some exacting spore examination I'm not sure how certain any identification can be, and even then.... At Loch Monzievaird I found both Stereum rugosum and Stereum hirsutum, both of which can be quite variable. Interestingly, I also found Yellow Brain Tremella mesenterica there, growing on Oak, I'd thought it was exclusive to Gorse, but apparently not.

I thought I'd not do much birding in Perthshire, but I'm just as interested, although there is considerably less expectation of finding anything rare. My local list continues to grow and local specialities are of interest. There is a Red Kite roost a short walk from the house and it's quite impressive. My best total so far is 114 all in the air at the same time and counts of over 80 are not infrequent.

Red Kites soaring pre-roost.

Counting the kites is not easy. Groups tend to drift off in one direction, and then maybe they drift back again, or maybe it is a a quite different group. It is a spectacular sight in any case.

My main birding mysteries are the species I haven't recorded as yet. No crossbill of any species, no redpoll of any species(ish). 

Moths are still being trapped, I trapped two nights ago before the cold snap began, and caught six moths. On 2nd November I caught well over 100, and on 8th November about 70, most of these were Spruce Carpet, but those are still good numbers for November. When the temperature goes up after this cold period I'll be out looking for winter moths with Operophtera fagata Northern Winter Moth my target species, as I've never seen one.

Moth highlights have been three species of Epirrita, Scarce Umber, which I failed to photograph, Red Sword-grass and December Moth. The Epirrita species were all new and of the other three I've seen very few of in the past.

December Moth Poecilocampa populi

With a bit of a lull with moths I've been looking more carefully at the caddis I've been catching and have identified a few. Most pleasing was Chaetopteryx villosa which I'd not seen before and I found in the field at the Community Woodland in some numbers. This is a fairly distinctive species, but I dissected to be certain.

Pair of Chaetopteryx villosa in cop.

Female gendet.

Male gendet.

Male, note the long wing hairs, dimples from which the hairs protrude, and short, very broad wings.

View back from a wee way up Glen Artney.

Evening sky near the kite roost.

Another evening, more sky.

The Epirrita problem.

 Of the four Epirrita moth species I'd only come across Small Autumnal Epirrita filigrammaria before moving to Perthshire. (E. filigrammaria is identifiable by flight time, earlier than E. autumnana, and habitat, it is a moorland moth.) Autumnal Moth Epirrita autumnana has occurred a few times in Orkney, but not on my trap sites. In the last few weeks I've started catching Epirrita moths at my new Perthshire garden.

A male Epirrita.

Epirrita species, probably also a male.

In all the identification books there are complex instructions about how to identify these from the wing markings, I don't really understand what they mean as I can't find labelled photographs that make these differences clear. The descriptions all talk about the shape of various lines on the wing around the discal spot. In this case even Leverton and Cubitt is not helpful, although they do suggest that the criteria, once learned are reliable. I need some lessons!

There being no handy teacher I've decided to go down the dissection route. As usual Chris Lewis at his brilliant website makes the dissection criteria very clear. Have a look here - https://britishlepidoptera.weebly.com/operophterini.html Interestingly Chris suggests that the external characters are not reliable.

I know some moth folk are not keen on killing moths to ascertain identification, and would likely just leave these things as Epirrita sp. I like to get stuff to species. To get useful photographs of moths prior to dissection takes some organisation. Indeed, to make sure the whole process is worthwhile takes some quite fastidious work including labelling the moths at an early stage and making sure each photo is directly attributable to a particular individual. Moths are best photographed alive, and I haven't in the (even recent) past always managed to ensure that the live photo can be attributed to a particular dissection. I'm on the case with Epirrita, after a few mis-starts.

Here's one I certainly tracked accurately through.

Epirrita christyi Pale November Moth, a male, 17/10/2024, live photo.

The 8th sternite, the shape is very distinctive.

8th sternite showing the octaval gap measured, = just a tad more than 0.2mm

A not especially good full dissection, it needed longer in the KOH, but the octavals on the 8th sternite can be seen to be close together and with a bit of imagination the dentate process on the ventral margin of the valvae can be seen. All these images are of the live moth pictured above.

Pale November Moth, Epirrita christyi was not the expected outcome, chuffed.

I dissected three more moths from 07/10/2024, unfortunately I did not associate the live photos directly with the specimens, thus only wings of dead specimens are photographed, and they are not especially good images. One moth was a female, the dissection does not differentiate the species reliably.

A better dissection, showing the valvae clearly. The octavals prove the identification. The photograph of the forewing is not especially useful.

Dissection proving November Moth, Epirrita diluta. Note the shape of the 8th sternite, top image, as well as the gap between the octavals. A perhaps more useful forewing image.

So two Epirrita species are occurring in the garden. I will carry out a few more dissections to try to understand the proportions of each species better. And I will shortly add some labelled photos of live moths to this post.

Off now to sort the trap from last night. But here's a cheeky predator caught on camera trap in our garden yesterday.

It's a Stoat by the way.