395 or 396, but who cares?

This morning's moth trap contents were a strange affair - it was quite a small total but did include a number of scarce species for the site, the fourth Barred Rivulet (left), the seventh Peacock Moth and the 10th Black Arches.

I am getting close to recording 400 species of macro in the garden, so thought that I'd have a count up of where the total actually stood. I wish I hadn't bothered, as I kept on getting differing totals. 395 or 396 seems to be the best guesstimate, but to be honest I cannot be arsed to try again. My mind is obviously elsewhere at the moment, most probably thinking about when Tottenham are going to get around to bolstering their forward line...

I must thank Billy Dykes for pointing out my schoolboy error in initially naming the Barred Rivulet as a Small Seraphim. Maybe I need to spend a bit more time swotting up on my moths this winter!

Comments

Billy Dykes said…
Steve - just to confuse you a bit more, your Small Seraphim has markings and a wing shape better suited to Barred Rivulet for me.
7 August 2015 at 13:55
Steve Gale said…
Thanks Bill, you are right!
7 August 2015 at 14:24
Derek Faulkner said…
Hope Spurs don't have a forward line tomorrow.
7 August 2015 at 16:59
Steve Gale said…
Do I detect a Red Devil?
7 August 2015 at 17:12
Derek Faulkner said…
You most certainly do, for around 50 years.
7 August 2015 at 19:06
Anonymous said…
I have an even more provocative affiliation Steve... But one that I hope you can see beyond!

Poor old Spurs. How is it they manage to take one Gareth Bale, sell him for a simply staggering amount of cash, blow said cash on almost an entire new team, and still look like a pale shadow of themselves? I feel for the club, I really do.

Some more plant posts coming up shortly for you from Shetland. Have been out checking on my Autumn Gentians and Small Adder's-tongues... and they're lookin' good.
8 August 2015 at 08:59
Steve Gale said…
Do I detect a Gooner posting? Yes Jon, the Bale money was squandered...

Looking forward to the plant posts!
8 August 2015 at 11:25
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Kwowww"

On Tuesday evening, at 20.05hrs, I was taking out the rubbish, when I heard a call from south-west of the house. I froze, knowing what it was at once, but scarcely believing it. I had listened to this call on Xeno-Canto many times, getting ready for such a moment but not really considering it something that I would hear over the back garden. After 15 seconds the call came again from the blackness, now directly over head. Yes, there was no mistaking it! Another 20 seconds it called a third time - now further away to the north-east... "Kwowww" A lazy drawl, part bark, part yelp. A Bittern. Nocturnal flight-call. I went back inside and played the call on Xeno Canto just to make sure that I had remembered everything correctly. I had. Bloody hell, a Bittern over suburban Banstead! And only a week after an Arctic Skua had blessed me just a mile or so away. Sometimes the birding Gods do smile on you. To some birders these two species are just small fry, mere starters to the main cou
Read more

Mike Netherwood

Image
I first met Mike Netherwood at Beddington Sewage Farm in early 1975, me being an ultra-keen and ultra-green 16-year old birder, he some 20 years my senior. Mike, together with Ken Parsley, were the remnants of a once much larger ringing group which carried out the trapping and ringing of birds across the open expanse of the sewage farm. Whenever I bumped into them, which I often did, they would both tolerate my many questions about what they had seen and trapped and listen to me waxing lyrical about my own observations. Over the coming months they showed me how they caught the birds, allowed me to witness the ringing and measuring of them and, if I were very lucky, allow me to help them out by holding mist-net poles, carrying bird bags or writing down (scribing) the data that they were collecting into notebooks. By the summer of 1976 I had joined them, proudly in possession of my trainee ringer's permit. For the next three years (until I 'defected' to Dungeness) I spent man
Read more

To tell it like it is, or not...

Image
I am grateful to Gavin Haig (Not Quite Scilly) who drew my attention to an opinion piece, penned by Matt Phelps, which appeared in the November issue of 'Birdwatch' magazine, entitled 'Positive Approach', which I have now read. In it, he suggests that there is too much negativity being posted on social media regarding the state of our birding world, which is then acting as a deterrent towards a younger generation in adopting conservation and wildlife study. He also suggests that a lot of this negativity is being generated by older birders, and that these old timers keep banging on about the 'good old days' which isn't helpful in encouraging the youth to pick up a pair of binoculars and get out into the field. Does he have a point? Now, I am undeniably an older birder, and I am also guilty of having posted, blogged, written and spoken about the slump in bird and invertebrate numbers. I also like nothing better than to revisit my notebooks and share in the hi
Read more