Spring moths, birds and beetles

 Spring is certainly here, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap are well established in The Ross with Redstart, Sand Martins and Swallows also recorded. Common Sandpiper were observed mating at the River Earn.

Chiffchaff

 Resident species like Treecreeper are more obvious with song and nesting activity.

Treecreeper

The nights have been quite cold but on the occasions it has warmed up the moth traps have caught  interesting things. I've been swamped with Great Prominent, a species I'd not seen before.

Great Prominent

This is a very beautiful moth and superbly camouflaged. When they line themselves up on a branch they are very difficult to see.

Great Prominent hiding.

 

The first of these turned up on 10th April and I've now caught 17 trapping on seven nights including the 10th. Other moths NFM (new for me) in this period have been Streamer, Lunar Marbled Brown, Scarce Prominent, May Highflyer and Oak Nycteoline.

Lunar Marbled Brown

Streamer - three of these recorded

May Highflyer

Scarce Prominent

Oak Nycteoline

There have been quite a few new beetles, I'm still working through some of them but the star has to be Ant Beetle Thanasimus formicarius which I found in the kitchen whilst I was cooking our tea one evening. It had been warm and the door had been open for some of the afternoon. I noticed something scurrying around in the parsley which we grow on the kitchen window ledge. I grabbed a pot and it turned out to be this spectacular beast.

Thanasimus formicarius, on release it hid itself in a crevice in the garden wall.

I'm still trying to find plants and today I noticed tiny white flowers in our car parking space, the gravel in front of the garage. This turned out to be New Zealand Bitter-cress, which I was rather pleased with.

Cardamine corymbosa, New Zealand Bitter-cress

 

The Oulema problem

The Oulema genus are Chrysomelid beetles. They are small but rather beautiful. These are the kind of beetle that you find and think, "Oh that'll be easy to identify...." Er, wrong! Yes, easy to get to genus but beyond that, dissection is required (Bezdek and Baselga 2015). Worse, with males once dissected out the aedaegus has to be opened up.

Images of the same Oulema sp beetle, but which species? (I didn't identify this individual, it walked/flew.)

Back on 11th June 2024 I caught an individual of this genus, in our kitchen on the window, a source of quite a few interesting records. I researched the genus, asked for some help which was kindly provided, dissected the specimen and came out at the identification Oulema duftschmidi which was iRecorded, duly verified and is now a dot on the NBN, there are few Scottish records.

 

Oulema duftschmidi

 

So that was June last year and here we are in April and at the beginning of the month a few of these turned up - on the dog, in the outside dog water, inside the kitchen window etc. My expectation was that these would all be Oulema duftsschmidi like the one from last year, wrong! These are all Oulema melanopus. I am now wondering about last year's animal. Something I have learned recently is that the dissection I carried out last year was inadequate for identification, it is necessary to dissect the aedaegus itself which I did not do. I'm now left wondering about the identification of that individual, but it was of course two months later so perhaps there are some seasonal differences in these species, their phenology may differ. More later.

 

Male aedaegus dissected out to show the flagellum, proving O. melanopus.
 

 

Female genitalia I'm not sure if this dissection is good enough to prove O. melanopus. I may have broken the important bits off.

Images of the genitalia are available in the paper cited above, but the male flagellum of O. duftschmidi is fine and thin, quite unlike the image above. The differences in the female genitalia are more subtle - "the junction of ductus spermathecae and bursa copulatrix (short and abruptly connected to finger-like process of bursa copulatrix in O. melanopus, long and gradually extended in O. duftschmidi (cf. Figs 26, 27)." ((Bezdek and Baselga 2015).

 

 

 

 

Another beetle issue has been with keys and Amara. The Amara are those bright and shiny Carabid beetles that you may observe scuttling about in the grass on sunny days. There are quite a few UK species and they pose and ID challenge. The main problem is that all the keys rely initially on two quite tricky criteria; these are the presence or absence of a pore at the base of the scutellar stria and/or whether the apical spur of the front tibia is single or split into three points. It might be expected that these criteria are clear, unfortunately they are not. With the pore I was left wondering whether the small pit I could see (or imagined I could see) was the pore present or not. And with the apical spur, until you have gained a fair bit of experience it is a tricky thing to make out unless you can orientate the leg in exactly the correct position. And even then some interpretation of what you are looking at is required.

 

Amara lunicollis

Amara lunicollis front leg, inner side

Pretty sure I have this one correctly, Mark Telfer's key is the easiest to use, but the most useful images are on the German beetle site here - https://www.coleonet.de/coleo/texte/amara.htm

 

 All tricky.

 

The Melinopterus problem...

For some years I have wrestled with the identification of Melinopterus sphacelatus and M. prodromus. The other day there was a post on Beetles of Britain and Ireland FB Group of a Melinopterus that I recognised as M. sphacelatus but it was identified and then confirmed as M. prodromus. I offered a correction to the ID and confirmation, but it had me thinking. 

Melinopterus sphacelatus from 2024

My interest in these beetles has a connection with the film The Outrun. One of the entomologists who regularly visits Orkney has a particular interest in dung beetles in general and Aphodines in particular, and she'd got me interested in looking at them. Additionally, our pony's water proved irresistible to these beetles and I often found them, daily at times, struggling or drowned. In Orkney pretty much all the Melinopterus I found were M. sphacelatus. Indeed I must go back through my data and check any M. prodromus identifications (I have done, there were two and they still look good to me, and have been verified by DM. These still do not show on the NBN though.) 

Back to The Outrun. Aphodines are very sensitive to veterinary products and have significantly declined across the UK. On Orkney whilst I had a few species to light and some at our aforementioned pony field I went searching for more. A favourite walk was along the cliffs north of Skaill Bay and there lies the Liptrot farm. John Liptrot kept horses and the horse poo was full of Aphodines so I frequently searched there. On one occasion JL came and asked me what on Earth I was upto! In a friendly way. (And I did add a couple of species to the Orkney list via my poo investigating on his farm.)

 I spent yesterday morning at Comrie Community Woodland, firstly photographing bees on willow flowers, and then watching and photographing the caddis Philopotomus montanus along the burn, where there was an added bonus. 

Bumblebees are not fun to identify, I'm still pondering this one, a small worker. Or not, I've got the scale wrong, Bombus terrestris, queen, I think.

Field image

 

But I'd caught one a few days previously...

Philopotomus montanus, post capture image.

 The added bonus was a bee fly that settled nearby briefly and I managed to get some seriously rubbish images. I've not seen a bee fly for years, and never identified one to species previously so Bombylinus major is a welcome addition to the P-SL list, rubbish image or not.

Bombylinus major

I then went and rattled a Hawthorn bush and collected a few insects. Amongst which is a weevil that might be is Anthonomous conspersus, which would be an excellent find!

Anthonomous conspersus (maybe) now confirmed, dead chuffed.

There are various other beasts from the Hawthorn, including a barkfly that I don't recognise, more work to be done. 

Anyway, after all this activity, as we were leaving and I was putting the hound in the car I noticed an Aphodine on her coat. There is a pony field right by the car park so this was not a surprise, but as I picked it off I knew immediately that it was Melinopterus and not sphacelatus. I think this was because the pronotum is not so pitted and so the colour looks deeper black, there's less reflection maybe. Anyway beetle processed and photographed this morning and I was proven correct.

Less pitted pronotum maybe.

Showing the end of the pits on the 8th stria against a line drawn from the end of the scutellum. It may also be seen that the pits of the 7th stria continue on for some way. In M. sphacelatus the pits of the 8th stria stop beyond the line, or at least vaguely peter out in that direction.

Both this photo and the one above show a dense black edge to the back of the pronotum, not a hint of orange beyond the initial quarter.

Again showing the 8th stria pits stopping well short of the 7th.

Melinopterus prodromus.

I'm pleased with this record and as we are currently helping with some ponies nearby I must go and have a rummage through their poo.

 This week I've also found another very interesting beetle as I've set a pitfall in the garden baited with rotten meat. Along with the usual suspects I found this which after a bit of struggle has been confirmed as Omisita discoidea which appears to be rare or very uncommon this far north.

Omosita discoidea

And one of the usual suspects...

 

Unfortunately deceased in the trap, Oiceoptoma thoracium

Moth of the week was Lunar Marbled Brown. 

 

And there were a few other nice moths...

 

Double-striped Pug

Early Grey

Early Tooth-striped

Obsidentify had this as Seraphim, it would be a bit early. I think it is just the dark form of Mottled Grey. But actually it is a dark Early Tooth-striped (thanks SS, corrected 26/04/2025).

Water Carpet.

 

 Whilst I was closing the moth trap at around 04:20 a very large flock of Pink-feet went over, heard only of course. But later in the morning as I was working through my captures several more flocks went over, the largest being of 320; the total was probably well in excess of 800.

 

Around 160 in this flock.
 

 

They might be giants....?

Louise thought she had seen an Emperor Moth the other day, but as they do, it shot past at many mph and too rapidly disappeared. It's been beautifully sunny here for a few days, and Louise's sighting and the weather reminded me that I'd refreshed my EMP pheromone lure stock last year. I rummaged around in my freezer, found my new pheromones eventually, and some minutes later there was an EMP lure in a pop sock tied to a bamboo stick just by the kitchen window.

 I sat inside with a coffee and within five minutes I noticed some activity around the lure. However, it was not the expected activity, but something small and Lepidopteran was interested in the lure. Macro camera in hand I was rapdily engaged.

Pammene giganteana Early Oak Piercer

New for the garden, and new for me, nice! The EMP quickly attracted two more. I'd been aware that these were being caught in England to FUN lure of late, so a bit more of a rummage in the freezer, and hunt in the cupboard for a trap or two and I put out a FUN lure, which later on caught a single moth.

The next day both FUN and LEEK were also deployed in the garden but the occurrence had got me wondering, so after lunch I went to the Community Woodland armed with EMP, FUN and another trap. I carried the EMP lure around with me (don't use EMP in a trap as Emperor Moth is too large for the aperture and will damage itself) but I put a trap with FUN lure in amongst some old Oaks. I did a bit of grass clumping for beetles etc and an hour later went back to the trap. Good result four Pammene giganteana, a new species for the site. None came to EMP that I noticed. Back at home I had one to EMP and three to FUN.

Pammene giganteana

The clumping was not without results as well - a caterpillar (10mm) as yet unidentified, Philoscia muscorum, a Stenus and a Tachyporus. The Staphylinids will be requiring some serious attention to get to species.

Philoscia muscorum

Tachyporus sp, to be identified.

An as yet unidentified larva.

Thinking it would be useful and interesting to see if I could add this moth species to Cemetery Wildlife Watch, the next day, I scooted up to Strowan Woodland Cemetery. I had very limited time but managed to leave the FUN lure armed trap for 20 minutes in the branches of an Oak whilst I deployed the EMP in another part of the cemetery. In 20 minutes six moths were trapped and another two were around the EMP.

Pammene giganteana

I'm guessing I'll find this moth locally wherever there are mature Oaks. I suspect that it is just the lack of folk using pheromones in Scotland that make it appear to be a quite uncommon species.

And I hadn't had a sniff of Saturnia pavonia, despite the EMP lure being in prime habo. It was then that NV reminded me that March is a tad early for this species in Scotland, and checking my own data I found 15th April to be the earliest I'd had it come to lure. So, Louise probably saw a Small Tortoiseshell in the first place!

A good day out at the Butterfly Conservation Spring Gathering in Perth. It was very well organised and there were excellent speakers, an informative and engaging day.