I have decided to knock the nature blog on the head for now. I always write it in my personal journal first, then copy and paste it to this web log. It's painful and time-consuming though, as all the pictures have to be formatted and pasted separately, and then after a couple of years I have to delete them to make room for new stuff. No bugger reads it anyway, so I might as well just write my personal log. If time frees up in the future, I may go back to it, but in the meantime any really decent stuff will go on Twitter and/or Facebook. Thanks for looking everyone, and if anyone ever reads this, feel free to leave a comment! Cheers! ChB

Today we drove down to East Sussex to interview the artist Roger Dean. We were on the M25 in Surrey near Clackett Lane when I saw 2 raptors soaring overhead. I took them to be a pair of buzzards, but when they departed in different directions, I saw that one was a red kite! This makes the second red kite I have seen in a year in Kent or Surrey this year, (the first was on Sun 26/05/19). I am still surprised, because I did not know there was a population of them here!

Found this small spider (about 1cm long) in the shed today. Photo taken hand-held in artificial light.

I haven’t seen a decent moths for ages – but then this morning, the the second time we have seen frost here and the coldest day of the season by far, this beast was waiting for me on the outside metal wall of the office block at work. It was identified by UKMothID on Twitter as a mottled umber, quite a variable species, but yet another new species for me.

Later in the day, we went to Beacon Wood Country Park at Bean near Dartford, which is always good for mushrooms and other fungi at this time of year, particularly the colourful fly agarics. The place surpassed itself today though, with hundreds of fly agarics all over the place! Here are some of the best shots – starting with some fly agarics Amanita muscaria.

Despite the distinctly autumnal conditions, the box tree moths are still flying thick and fast. This one (on a glass door at the offices where I work) was more thick than fast, to be fair...

Found another yellow underwing moth on the wall at work today. It looks very much like the large yellow underwing I found last week, and is the same size or nearly, but those dark blotches on the wings looks distinctive. Again, it was IDd on Twitter as the lesser yellow underwing.

ARACHNOPHOBE ALERT: The following entry may contain spiders. Flippin' HUGE, hairy, scary spiders with ENORMOUS pointed TEETH!

Well, we had a really weird event at work today. As the factory/office block I work at is close to the Thames estuary and very low-lying, there is always a danger that river water will come up through the drains and flood the car park. Some years ago, decking was installed around the office block perimeter to raise the footway above the tarmac. Overnight there were very high tides though, coupled with a mechanical breakdown of Southern Water’s flood defences, so when we came in, water had already got into the production plant and warehouse.

There was another high tide at about 3:00pm, and the water started rising again. A lot of people were out on the decking watching the level rising, and when it touched the underside of the decking, all the creepy-crawlies that live down there were forced up into the open. Huge spiders came up from between the boards and huddled against the building, while loads of tiny and immature spiders started running backwards and forwards looking for somewhere to hide. It was like someone's worst Hallowe’en nightmare. E few roosting moths crawled up as well, and several beasts found their way through the doors into the office block. It was a bit of a photo-fest for me of course, and I saw some species I have never seen before! So arachnophobes beware; this journal is about to become very spidery! Big monsters first I think …

Two new species for me, flushed out by the flood!

A bit of a strange thing happened as I was walking to work in the semi-darkness this morning. Not long after 6:30am, I spotted an insect crawling across the pavement in front of me. I stopped and it stopped too; I gave it a prod with my foot, but it wouldn’t start moving again. There was a lot of autumn leaf detritus spread around, but I was sure I had seen this particular dot moving; it was too dark to see what it was, so I crouched down and took a couple of flash photos of it. I thought it might be some kind of bee or something. When I was able to check the photos, I found out it was a moth, and I’m pretty sure it’s one I haven’t seen before, too:

I have left a sycamore seed in the photograph for scale, and I believe this moth to be a lunar underwing Omphaloscelis lunosa, which is a new species for me! It gets the name from a crescent-moon shaped marking on the underwings, not visible in this photograph of course.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, there has been a massive irruption of box tree moths this year – but these are virtually the most shy and easily-spooked moths I have ever come across. Usually they see you coming even before you see them, and any roosting specimens that are close enough to photograph take off and flutter away before you can even get your camera out. They don’t settle back down quickly either, and tend to meander away or up and over the roof. I have managed to get some fairly distant photos, but even then it tends to fail because the high contrast of their bright white wings with the dark borders tends to mess up the light metering, and all you get is a flat, glowing expanse of white, (as with my photo from Fri 13/09/19). But today it was quite chilly, and this one let me get close – really close. I had to take shots in between gusts of wind (that regularly disturbed the creatures wings), but I got some decent shots at last.

It is an invasive species from East Asia, introduced to Europe in 2006 when they started being spotted in Germany, and invading the UK two years later. However, this is the first year they have been really noticeable and common.

Here is another new species of moth for me, on the warehouse wall as usual, but so cryptically coloured that I think I walked past the pair of them a couple of times. This is a mating pair of the Pale mottled willow, to distinguish it from any other species of mottled willow you may come across. Below them is a photo of a lime-speck pug moth, a small but very recognisable species due to the wing configuration.

Found this nice caddis fly on the warehouse wall too – about 2cm long and could easily be mistaken for a moth, this is the adult of the children’s-book-favourite caddis larva, that lives underwater and covers itself with a casing of sand, grit and tiny twigs.

And then while I am about it, probably my best-ever shot of what is probably a common plume moth, and a reasonably decent one of a beautiful plume, which is actually about half the size.

Yet another fantastic new species of moth turned up on the warehouse today. Small but perfectly formed, this is the gold triangle. The pose most commonly seen in illustrations is of the moth holding its wings in a triangle shape; forming a gold outline, hence the name. But this species is known for two distinctively different resting postures, and this specimen selected the second, spreadeagled on the side of the warehouse, displaying warm purplish-brown colouring highlighted with gold, an arched back and bright green eyes.

Had a nice walk in the early autumn sunshine at Jeskyns today. Here           are a couple of butterflies: a late comma and a small heath.

And here’s another guidebook anomaly. This small moth, with a wingspan of about 2 cm, has virtually no identifying features other than a creamy colour and dusty complexion, and a vague horizontal dark line halfway down. There is also, you may notice, a dark spot near the middle of each wing. This is enough to identify it as the small dusty wave moth. It is on a page with half a dozen virtually identical moths of different sizes and slightly variable shades. And yet under ‘similar species’, the book says, ‘no similar closely-related species’, but sometimes confused with a couple of moths of the pug family. Maybe there are some glaringly identifiable features that just pass me by.

After a woefully slow start to the year, new moth species are flowing thick and fast now. This one looked at first to be a blood-vein, although the thick central line is grey rather than dark red, and the moth seems a little small. So it turns out to be a new one to me, the small blood-vein Scopula imitaria.

We took a trip up to Greenwich Market today, and I kept passing this dusky thorn moth roosting on the wall. It seems to have that cryptic colouring so common in moths that causes it to virtually disappear against tree bark – but the individual way thorn moths have of holding their wings makes it impossible to lie flat! It struck me that it looked more like a bracket fungus, but roosting on a white wall didn’t seem to be the best camouflage strategy. It was there when we arrived at 8:00am and still there when we left at 5:30pm!

Not much around today, except for a few Crambid moths. These are the long, thin micromoths, often called grass moths because they tend to land on grass blades, and being so thin, they often disappear completely behind such a slim leaf! This Catoptria falsella is well-marked and relatively colourful though, and although they are reckoned to be pretty common, I don’t remember seeing one before.

While I am on a spidery theme – I found this fully-grown male Segestria florentina on the pavement on my way to work this drizzly morning. It wasn’t moving at all, but it wasn’t dead – just a bit cold I think. Probably been out on the razz.

The two common plume moths at the bottom illustrate how difficult it can be to identify even a common species. The first one is quite hale and hearty, and relatively sturdy, with closed wingtips. It may not be easy to tell from the photos, but the second is way smaller and more wispy-looking, and the wing tis are splayed slightly. I submitted it to the Twitter fraternity though, and the consensus was that it is still a common plume rather than some more exotic species.

Most years, the number of swifts starts thinning out halfway through August, with stragglers all the way to the end of the month. This year was strange though; I think it was yesterday that I noticed several swifts wheeling around out the back of the house. Then today, we did a massive day trip to Bath, and I don’t remember seeing any swifts down there. In fact I have not seen one since, so it seems that yesterday was the last day for swifts.

Which is exactly what it is. Last time I found one of these, I submitted a photo to the ladybird recording scheme, who helpfully identified it as Rhyzobius lophanthae, a brown-headed species and, we believe, a first record for Kent! The same authority IDd this one as Rhyzobius forestieri. Richard Comont observed on Twitter that it “Seems to be having a very good year in the southeast, lots of sightings on Facebook groups.”

A family day trip down to Rye Harbour went through Tenterden in Kent, where we stopped for a break. This oak bush cricket was crawling up a shop window for some reason, so I captured it for a photo session. Every oak bush cricket I have found in Kent for ages has been wingless, which is not unknown in the usual variety, but is always the case for the southern variety, which has colonised the southern counties from Europe over the last few years. It is difficult to tell a southern from a wingless common, so I won’t take a guess at this one. I can however, tell from the sickle-shaped ovipositor that it is a female.

When we got down to the seashore, this large gull landed on a marker post some way away, and I zoomed in with the camera. This is the great black-backed gull Larus marinus. Although the great black-back is notably larger than the lesser, they are both large gulls and pretty solitary, so the scale is not easy to judge. However, the great’s back is genuinely black, as opposed to the more washed-out dark grey of the lesser, and the great has pink legs as opposed to the lesser’s yellow legs.

A dragonfly got into the conservatory today, so I shut the door and waited until it landed so I could get a shot. A migrant hawker of course (they always are), but a real beauty nonetheless.

Yet another attempt to get the definitive photograph of a common plume moth. This is one of my better attempts, hence its inclusion here …

Found this nice grasshopper on the fence round the back of the factory. It was quite large and very mottled, but in the end I think it is just a common field grasshopper. Might be wrong though.

This attractive micro moth is one I have never seen before, and like most of my best finds, was basking on the outside back warehouse wall. It looks good from the left side, but the right side has sustained a fair bit of damage. I was musing on Twitter that moths have some great names, but the privileged folk who get to name them don’t seem to apply their art to naming spiders, which I think is a shame. For instance, this is the rosy-striped knot-horn moth Oncocera semirubella. So why do we never get to reply to some little spider as the semi-washboarded toe horn or something?

In any case, a fellow blogger named Douglas Boyes maintains that a more common vernacular name for this little moth is the ‘rhubarb and custard’. In any case, my book gives no common name for it at all, but says that it is ‘very local’, so another good find!

The warehouse wall was absolutely rife with moths this morning. I can’t do it though – no matter how much I try, I can’t get good shots round that side of the warehouse that time in the morning. I don’t know if it is the brown background messing up the light-metering or what, but all the shots are washed out and pallid. I can compensate somewhat with software, but it’s not a natural look. Anyway, let’s have a yellow shell moth first; this was behind a down-pipe and doesn’t look too bad, then a lovely brimstone and a small emerald.

And just to round things off, here is a much better shot of the micro moth Cochylis molliculana, one of which was included on Mon 29/07/19. Can see individual wing scales on this one!

This gypsy moth turned up on the outside of one of our house windows today. This is clearly a male, as the females are much lighter, almost white – but the males often display huge bunny-ears, which are actually feathery antennae. In this case they are folded down across its shoulders though – you can just make out the shaft of its left-hand antenna. 

… and today is the day! I could hardly get in to work today as there seemed to be an interesting beastie every few yards along the warehouse wall. First up though, is the Common plume moth Emmelina monodactyla. These are common all year and can often be seen at rest in the full open, on all but the most viciously icy days. The common plume is usually light brown, with a lighter stripe down the middle of its back, punctuated by darker spots or dashes. There is an indistinct spot halfway along each wing.

Other beasts I found on the warehouse included this fearsome red-legged shieldbug, another new species for me, and the micro-moth below that, another one that is unusual in this area according to the book – and yet the warehouse wall is absolutely rife with them. This is Cochylis molliculana, and although they are always small, they seem to have a remarkably wide size range. The largest are 11 or 12mm, but some are no more than 5 or 6mm.

Other small creatures I found today include this mayfly, which seems a bit larger and more sturdy that the general run of mayflies, and a tiny spider running down a gutter pipe.

There was some other stuff too, but either my camera is getting worse, or I am.

• I saw two crows sitting on adjacent fence posts and thought, well why not? I don’t have any decent photos of crows. I think the one on the right is a fledgling; it looks a bit fluffy anyway.

Last time we came to Jeskyns, three weeks ago, it was absolutely rotten with marbled white butterflies, but they had all gone now. Until, that is, we were most of the way round the park, where there was a 100-foot stretch of grass that was absolutely infested with the things. They were fluttering and landing all around me, to the point that I didn’t know which way to point my camera. They never rested for more than a few seconds though, and this is the best shot I managed. They are all starting to look a little raggy and careworn now as well.

This lovely emerald moth was languishing on the side of the warehouse when I came into work this morning. Unfortunately with the early-morning sun on its highly-reflective wings, it made a poor subject for my dodgy little compact camera. The photo was almost pure white, but I reduced the brightness as far as it would go in Microsoft Photos, whacked the colour up as high as it would go, messed around with the contrast a bit and added a vignette, which darkens the edges of the shot, leaving the subject in a kind of spotlight. It still looks a bit grey, but it’s a nice shot now!

Found this half-grown speckled bush cricket in the back garden today.

Now here’s an interesting thing. I found this beastie, that looks like a predatory wasp, on the outside windowsill of the conservatory. It appears to have caught a green shieldbug nymph and carried it to the windowsill, but then it just sat there looking at it. I expected to see it laying eggs in or on the nymph, or if not that then simply eating it, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. They stayed in that pose for some while, enough time for me to take several photos, then when I went back inside I left them in the same position. 

I took it to Twitter to find out what was going on and received the full gamut of replies along the lines of, “Maybe it was just too heavy,” “Looks like he’s giving it a hug” and stuff. All of which had occurred to me as it happens. Thanks to Matt Berry though, who identified the wasp as Astata boops and stated, “That shieldbug is paralysed and ready to be used for laying the wasps eggs inside.”

This little beast was inhabiting a big, white wall in my office at work. The colouring looks like it is supposed to be cryptic and camouflaged, but not against a huge expanse of white.

As I was dragging my bike out of the garden into the back alley to cycle to work at about 6:30 this morning, this large dragonfly landed in a lilac tree in a neighbour’s garden. I manage one shot before it took off again, but I had high hopes wasn’t one of the usual species I see all the time, because I did not recognise the coloured markings. As it happens though, it is a dead common migrant hawker – but the pinkish colouration is due to it being a juvenile. I found the micro moth overleaf on the outside of the warehouse wall at work.

I have seen the moth below several times before, and I would identify it unhesitatingly as a bird-cherry ermine. Checking the book though, it seems to be one of the other similar ermine moths – the bird-cherry has noticeably more spots than this. Several of the other species are very similar though, and I could not make a positive ID.

Having ruled out the bird-cherry, there are several other species that are all very similar. I noticed someone else on Twitter having trouble identifying a very similar moth, so I threw my hat into the ring and we reeived a reply from a very useful expert named UKMothIdentification. I should point out that very similar species of spider, moth etc. is by a microscopic examination of their reproductive organs. I guess that whn they look that similar, they have to have some inbuilt method of making sure they reproduce within their species, so they have specific genital specialisations that a naturalist can use to identify the. On this occasion though, UKMothIdentification said the following:

So, Apple, Spindle, Orchard and Willow are all too variable to be IDed from appearance, and on top of that they can't be separated by genitalia either, as they're also similar in that department. The only way is to see their caterpillars, and upon which plants they are feeding.

Time travel isn’t yet within my remit, so this one must remain forever a mystery.

Walking down the hill, I was captivated by this incredible damsel fly that flew across the road and settled sporadically in the hedge. It is only the second time I have seen a demoiselle; they are a stunning metallic green and at least twice the size of most common damselflies. I think this one is a female; the species are quite easily distinguished in the males because the beautiful demoiselle has brownish wings, whereas the banded demoiselle has a thick dark band across the wings. The females of both species are very similar though, lacking either of these distinguishing marks. However, I lean towards the banded, because a little later on I saw a male banded fluttering about the stream at the other end of the site. I couldn’t get near enough to photograph it, although I did manage a short video at a distance.

I did something today that I hadn’t done for a while, and took a walk out on to the patch of wild land in front of the factory at lunchtime. One specific ragwort plant was infested with cinnabar moth caterpillars, always a nice find!

I also noticed at the back of the garden that several of our Solomon’s seal plants are absolutely shredded. This is usually the work of Solomon’s seal sawfly caterpillars, which are a mid-grey and live underneath the leaves – but I lifted up a number of leaves and couldn’t find any. Later in the day, on my return, I still couldn’t find any caterpillars, so I’m a bit puzzled.

A few other things – the black caterpillar with the light dots and the bluish spines is the larva of a Peacock butterfly. The blue spines usually look black, but they are showing up well in this light. We also have a Roesel’s bush cricket nymph, about a quarter of full size.

Back at home, I got a few shots of this goldfinch on the TV aerial up on the roof. Perhaps not the prettiest goldfinch you’ve ever seen, but nice and clear at least.

Found this little jumping spider in the conservatory today. It seemed quite large for a jumping spider, maybe 7 or 8 mm long! This is a pretty common species though, Sitticus pubescens, no common name, as usual for spiders.

A tiny ladybird, only a couple of millimetres long and with no discernible markings

The comma butterflies are suddenly out in force this week. There was a veritable cloud of them up by the nettle beds at the top of Church Walk – here is just one.