Wednesday 15 July 2015

Insect day

Heysham obs
Started fairly low key with a misjudged north harbour wall actinic session in a north-westerly which was far too brisk.  A couple of silver y highlighted along with four white line dart

Middleton
A late check after the butterfly census saw three male and one female red veined darter amongst an increasingly obvious common darter presence but no red males yet

Moth trap
Scalloped oak and yellow tail new for the year

Butterfly census
Hummingbird hawk-moth ne tearing on lady's bedstraw for five minutes the highlight in a niggling north westerly rendering some of the census route a bit too windy. Not a lot of choice this week on the forecast. Dominated by small skipper and meadow brown with a few gatekeeper and large skipper with ones and twos of white spp and comma and red admiral


Thanks to Jackie and David Moreton for these pics of Red-veined and Common Darters plus Black-tailed Skimmer