Migrants

A while back (2019, time flies) Sarathy Korwar released an album - More Arriving, which I like very much, both the music and the humanity expressed resonate in these divisive times (digital album available on Bandcamp for £7.20ish). Anyway, this is a bit of a crude device to put some politics (Scottish Parliament elections approaching....) into a bit a seasonal phenomenon with migrant birds currently trickling back to their breeding grounds. I heard Cuckoo yesterday at the community woodland whilst minding my insect traps, Chiffchaff and Blackcap were also present.

The main migrant event (in the natural as opposed to human world) has been a huge arrival of moths from Mauritania/Western Sahara (thanks SN), namely Small Mottled Willow Spodoptera exigua. I trapped in our garden on 7th April and there were two Spodoptera exigua, one netted in the evening and one in the blue LED Heath trap.

Small Mottled Willow Spodoptera exigua

 

According to Leverton and Cubitt 2024 these are the first records for Mid-Perthshire. The next night I trapped at the community woodland and caught another. That would indicate there are many thousands at loose in the Perthshire countryside.

These light trapping sessions, at home and  at the community woodland were excellent overall. I'd not seen Small Mottled Willow before so that was NFM, and there was also Satellite in the trap which I've seen very few of. The next evening at the CCW there were two more moth species NFM, a very fresh and smart Lead-coloured Drab and two Eriocrania sangii as well as another Satellite and a Water Carpet.

Satellite

Eriocrania sangii

Lead-coloured Drab

Water Carpet

The Eriocrania sangii are slightly problematic. The better marked one looked good for E. sangii, but unfortunately there is a confusion species, E. semipurpurella. The extent of the pale tornal spot should be good enough to determine the species but I noticed online a comment that dissection might be necessary, and checking Chris Lewis' commentary he also recommended dissection for certainty. Females are fairly straightforward to determine with dissection, the differences with males are more subtle. One of my specimens had lost most of its scales, although there were long scales on the hind wings so it was one of these two species, just possibly I had both.

Dissecting tiny moths seems like an impossible task but generally it is surprisingly easy, chop off the abdomen and put it in 10% KOH. Just leave it there for 10 hours or so at a cool temperature, everything can be speeded up by increasing the temperature, but don't completely dissolve the specimen! Then tease everything apart under the microscope with mounting pins. 

The two moths turned out to be males and the dissections required removing the aedaegus from the rest of the genital apparatus. The differences are quite subtle -explanation here- 

https://www.mothdissection.co.uk/species.php?ABH=2.00800 

 

Aedaegus of each moth.

 

The whole gendet.

Subtle,but I think these are ok for E. sangii.

 On a somewhat lighter note a pair of Long-tailed Tits performed rather nicely for me at the CCW.

Long-tailed Tit.

To more earthy  matters, the dead leveret by the hub is a treasure trove, if a tad smelly.

Why a treasure trove? Because it is full of beetles. Catops chrsomeloides (confirmed MS, thank you) was the smallest and most active, requiring a rather disgusting poot from the corpse! Nicrophorus vespilloides was spectacular but not unexpected, Thanatophilus rugosus, familiar, and the next day quite a few Oiceoptoma thoracicum, something I'd not seen prior to moving to Perthshire.

Red-breasted Carrion Beetle Oiceoptoma thoracicum, on the hare and on other suitably enticing carrion there were 30 in all.

Nicrophorus vespilloides

 The Common Whitlowgrass is, well, common at the woodland this year and even flowering under the hub building.

Common Whitlowgrass Erophila verna

In the sunshine there were quite a few Peacock Butterflies, Dark-bordered Bee-fly and a few hoverflies which I struggled to photograph or identify. I need to go back with a net.

Peacock Aglais io
 

A couple of Drinker were likely searching for somewhere to pupate.

Drinker Euthrix potatoria

 

The vane traps have begun to capture things, although I need to modify them as they require a better rain guard. I'll probably report on those in the next post, but they are producing beetle species I'm unfamiliar with, so much time is required to identify the captures.

Finally, and in another obtuse political reference linking with the post title, there was a small drama on the surface of the pond by the hub. On inspecting it I found Pterostichus nigrita/rhaeticus swimming across the surface, not what either species is adapted for (to species by dissection only), it must have fallen in. The carnivorous pond skaters (species not determined) took a significant interest and it looked like the beetle was going to be dinner. But, perhaps the bugs were sated on tadpole, the Pterostichus made it to some vegetation and clambered out. 

Pterostichus nigrita/rhaeticus- more fortunate than many humans trying to reach UK shores.

 

You're so vane....

I've been doing a bit of reading about beetle trapping and in order to increase my community woodland (and my own P-SL) lists I needed to try something different. Both the late Simon Leather https://simonleather.wordpress.com/ and Dan Asaw https://www.60shadesofbrown.uk/ have some useful info on vane traps. There are also scientific papers that compare the efficacy of different trap designs. However, efficacy is one thing and being able to make the design is another, so the more straightforward design that DA has used with some success was decided upon. I didn't have a handy "House for Sale" sign to chop up, so I had to order some appropriate plastic board that is cut-up-able. This was the most expensive part of the trap. Like DA I also ordered some home brewing funnels, but I decided to purchase the collection bottles, fortunately these fit directly onto the bottom of the funnels, which is handy. Total cost for three traps £55 (without the board it would be about £15). I used an old plastic sack for the lids, and like DA garden wire to fix the thing together.

Trial site in the garden. The devastation behind was a product of the re-building of the stone dyke along the Earthquake field. A piece of art, and hopefully the vegetation will recover quickly.

I'll use distilled, clear vinegar  as the preservative in the bottom of the trap. These are kill traps, but so many beetles require microscopic examination to identify them. I am hoping that these traps placed in the established trees in the community woodland will capture some interesting beasts.

It maybe that our recent troubles with Wood Mouse are the result of the disturbance to the field behind the house. 

Wood Mouse Apodemus sylvaticus

 With four new traps deployed and baited with peanut butter I'm catching six or seven of the blighters every night. Quite likely I'm not releasing them far enough away, but other measures will be deployed, apparently peppermint deters them, we will see! Fortunately the Bank Voles have not joined in and are staying where they belong, in the garden.

I'm still working on identifying the lichens I found around Loch Fyne, not easy. Even with AI, two good books and some excellent websites these are tricky. 

Stricta sylvatica

Anaptychia runcinata I think

Bunodophoron melanocarpum, I'm advised (thanks PU and ID)

Cetraria aculeata

Ramalina siliquosa and Xanthoria parietina

   

Ramalina siliquosa

.... more to come just need to cook tea.

The graveyard at Kilmorie Chapel was full of lichens, tons Lobaria pulmonaria and Lobaria virens. Other species also, but whether I can identify them is another matter.

 

 31 Whoopers flew approx due east directly over our heads as we mooched around the graveyard.

A walk down to Old Castle Lachlan was productive with both Greenshank and Little Egret feeding in the pools.

Stunning Greenshank image.

The Little Egret came out a bit better, both digiscoped.

 We managed to stay an extra day, the one day with sunshine. It's an interesting area and a return trip is called for, I'd like to follow up on some of the lichens I might have seen, and explore the shore lines a bit more carefully.

Back at home I've run the light traps a couple of times in the garden. Moth numbers have picked up substantially, running three traps in less than perfect conditions on  21st I caught more than 90 with highlights of Yellow Horned and Agonopterix arenella.

Yellow Horned

 

Agonopterix arenella

However, the highlight was a beetle, and quite a surprise, Geotrupes spiniger, nice!

 

Geotrupes spiniger

The weather wasn't so good on 23rd but I put a single trap out under the garage awning, 30 or so moths including Red Chestnut, which was new for the garden.

Red Chestnut

 

Out west

We went away for a week. We've not done that for a while. We went to a wee village on the banks of Loch Fyne. I was quite excited about this as there are a lot more species of lichens in the remnants of the temperate rain forest. However, not everything went according to plan, as the previous post might indicate.

I did find plenty of lichens, which of course I'm still working through, not quite as tricky as bryophytes, mostly because the AI is not bad and getting better at lichens, but it's pretty hopeless with mosses, so it takes hours to even start to identify them.

No, I don't know this one....

Thuidium tamariscinum, I think. This is the one that carpets the west.

I've got myself set up with the chemicals required for lichen hunting, and a way of safely transporting them, although I'm yet to use them. Maybe tomorrow as I have a few samples to check out.

Anyway, there were plenty of fairly obvious lichens that were relatively easy to identify; no chemicals necessary. Lobaria pulmonaria was everywhere in the right habitat. 

Lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria

 There  is one place near home that it grows, but I found it in any places there, without really trying. I also managed to find its relative Lobaria virens, which I hadn't found before.

Lobaria virens

As it turned out there were some insects that I came across that were considerably more exciting than these lichens, well I prefer things with legs when it comes down to it.

Scathophaga calida, a not especially common littoral fly.

A rummage on the beach by the rental house was even more interesting. A centipede and a millipede tick first off. 

Strigamia maritima, a common centipede of the high tideline which I really should have recorded before.

Cylindroiulus punctatus, a common enough millipede which again I had previously ignored.

I'd turned over quite a few rocks and stones, bits of wood and other detritus along the strand line. Then I turned over a stone, much like others, but the substrate below was more compact, perhaps a tad less liable to be inundated. And there were beetles! I haven't even attempted the Staphylinids that were there, likely Aleocharinae, they'll probably be a nightmare to identify. However, there were also some tiny (c2.5mm) Carabids. St first I thought they were Aepus marinus, but fortunately I took a few specimens (and Wikipedia has the incorrect species illustrated for A. marinus BTW).  When I put these under the microscope yesterday I found that they were the closely related Aepopsis robinii, these are even less common, particularly in Scotland, with just 8 records on the NBN.

This image does not show the elytral shape well, see lowest image, however, the eyes are comparatively large and the elytra are glabrous apart from the sensory setae.

A live one, but a good job I took the specimen.

Showing the rounded apices to the elytra, so there is a notch between them, Aepus marinus, the confusion species, has straight apices to the elytra so there is no notch. Other differences - smaller eyes and fine hairs on the elytra.

There were about fifteen of these under the one stone. 

Under the piece of wood where I found the Cylindroiulus there were also some odd white things. These vaguely rang a bell, but I could not recall what the connection was; Burray maybe. A post on the P-SL FB Group and I was reminded of Ensign Scale Insects, I had seen, and collected one or two in Burray in the past, actually at the bottom of BH's garden. However, my photos raised a bit of consternation as this one could not be ascribed to a UK species. It then turns out that PTS has found what is probably the same species elsewhere on the west coast. It may be that these are a North American species of Arctorthezia.

Arctorthezia species perhaps occidentalis

Of course I'd failed to take a specimen, so I need to return...

There's more to post about this outing. The birds were pretty good, we saw seven Harbour Porpoise way up the loch, and Harbour Seal. I found one or two plants of interest and it was scenically very different from home. But I need to sort out more photos first....