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Go moth trapping

24/6/2015

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Moths are AMAZING!
Ghost moth - yellow and orange
Orange and yellow ghost moth.
If you’d asked me to describe a moth last week, I’d’ve probably told you that moths are dull brown (or browny-grey) butterfly type things that come in three sizes: tiny, normal and kinda scary.

But since Saturday, I’ve been regaling anyone who’ll listen with stories about moths. Most of the stories go like this: “It’s black and white/pink and green/black and red/orange and yellow/green and silver/bronze/black and yellow and it looks like a broken twig/art/bird poo/bark/a bee/Cruella de Vil/a leaf and it’s AMAZING! Moths are AMAZING!”
Puss moth
Delicately patterned black and white puss moth with gold tracing.
Before last week, I imagined moth trapping was a hobby for people who joined some kind of wildlife club, got vetted on the sly, then received an exclusive invitation from the Splendid Worshipful Guild of Lepidopterists to join them for an intense evening of moth identification, complete with specialist equipment and a secretary with a large book for recording species. Or, on a totally different scale, I thought it was a thing kids did with a torch and a sheet in their back gardens, where the identification always amounted to, “I guess it’s one of the medium sized brown ones.”

But on Saturday morning, I was fortunate enough to be invited up to Pestalozzi near Sedlescombe, East Sussex, where Dave Green had set out three moth traps the night before. When we walked in, Dave was balancing a broken silver birch twig on his finger. Only . . . the twig was in fact a moth. A buff-tip moth. At once, I was intrigued. I can’t remember ever seeing such fantastic camouflage. I was also impressed with its hair-do!
Buff tip moth
Buff-tip moth.
Buff tip moth
Buff-tip moth.
Buff tip moth
Buff-tip moth - check the hair!
Dave, who is a Trustee of Sussex Wildlife Trust and committee member of the Sussex Moth Group, had a few interesting moths ready for us to look at while we ate our breakfast. The cinnabar moth is a black moth with bright red stripes and spots, on the smaller side of medium, presumably named after the red mineral.
Cinnabar moth
Black and red cinnabar moth.
The maiden’s blush moth is a small, creamy coloured moth with rouged-cheek-like spots on the upper wings and a thin line across both wings. Lots of moths were named by the Victorians, said Dave, and they quite sensibly gave them descriptive, easy to remember titles. Dave also had an elephant hawk-moth to show us. This was definitely a crowd pleaser: a big, olive green and pink (yes, pink!) moth with white trimmings. Hawk moths are known as speedsters of the moth world, with bodies and wings optimised for rapid flight.
Elephant hawk-moth
Olive green and bright pink elephant hawk-moth.
Breakfast over, we went to check the three traps. They’d been set out the night before: one in long grass at the edge of a wildflower field, one in shorter grass near some brambles and trees and the last on a footpath in woodland. The aim was to catch a wide variety of species. Each moth has evolved to feed on a particular range of vegetation (as a moth and a caterpillar) and other foods (as a caterpillar), while many have also evolved a camouflage specific to a certain environment.

The peppered moth has an interesting story to tell in terms of camouflage and natural selection. Before the industrial revolution, most of these medium sized moths were speckled black and white. From the industrial revolution, pollution from coal smoke and other sources turned many of the trees and habitats of these moths black; those moths with more white on them were more visible and more likely to be predated. By the end of the 1800s, almost all of these moths - at least around industrial cities - were completely black. Nowadays, the peppered moth has mostly returned to a paler, speckled state.
Peppered moth - I think!
Black and white speckled peppered moth - I think!
The poplar hawk-moth, as well as looking like leaves, bark or weathered wood, has another trick up its sleeve. (Not that moths wear clothes.) (Having said that, this was a very fuzzy creature, so it looked a bit like it had a jumper on.) This large moth rests with its bottom wings held further forward than the top wings, breaking up its moth-shape so it doesn’t attract the attention of predators. This was one of my favourite moths, probably because it was so placid and sat on my finger for ages. I’d like a pet one, thank you.
Poplar hawk moth
My friend the poplar hawk-moth.
Poplar hawk moth
Poplar hawk-moth showing strange wing position.
Another favourite of mine was the fabulous white ermine moth. It’s a medium sized white moth with black spots on its wings and it looks as though it’s wearing a huge, fluffy, white fur stole. (Fake fur, of course.) As my partner said, it resembled Cruella de Vil.
White ermine moth
White ermine moth (foreground).
White ermine moth
White ermine or Cruella de Vil moth.
Most of the moths I photographed - and most of the ones we talked about - are what’s known as macro moths. That is, they’re big(ish). There are hundreds of larger moth species in the UK, but Dave noted that there are thousands of species of micro moth - probably including some that haven’t been recorded. One of the younger moth enthusiasts at the moth trapping event was a bit hesitant to hold the larger moths, so started out small with a tiny moth. We also found a micro moth with ridiculously long antennae.
Micro moth on finger
Micro moth on a finger.
Micro moth with long antennae
Micro moth (right) with huge antennae.
Many of the nocturnal moth species were reluctant to move, let alone fly away. They just want to sleep, OK?! But moths like to crawl forward to higher levels, so to move them from one hand to the next, the receiver would place their fingers in front of the moth, slightly higher, and give the moth a gentle nudge on the end of the tail. I’m not sure that would work so well with the moths that roll over and play dead when they feel threatened, though.
Some sort of green moth
Green moth with brown and white details - blotched emerald.
I could go on for ages (I have gone on for ages!) about all the moths we saw in the traps: silver-white green moths, bright grass-green moths, striped green moths, shimmering green and bronze moths; a number of other elephant hawk-moths and cinnabar moths; moths camouflaged to look like bird poo (no moth predator eats bird poo) or flowers; the astonishingly bright yellow and orange ghost moth; the scorched wing moth; the lobster, puss and kitten moths. Instead, I will simply reiterate: moths are AMAZING!
Green silver-lines moth
Green silver-lines moth.
A bronze moth
Bronze and pink angle shades moth.
A moth!
Some kind of ridiculous moth!

I recommend you check out moth groups in your area and give moth trapping a go. In this area, the Sussex Wildlife Trust has an event in July, or the Sussex Moth Group has stacks of outings over summer and into autumn (though I think you need to become a member for the royal sum of £5). If you go trapping, please post loads of photos of AMAZING moths for me to look at! (You should save your questions about (a) why moths are attracted to light and (b) what the difference is between moths and butterflies for the experts.)

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Do a day walk from Northiam in high spring

19/6/2015

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A gentle springtime walk around the East Sussex/Kent border near Northiam, along the River Rother and through the hills.
Green grass, blue sky
The sun is high in the sky and it already feels like midday as we walk down through the pretty village of Northiam. We pass hawthorn hedges wearing their first blossoms and cross the River Rother at a narrow bridge, admiring the boats moored below.

Our path takes us downstream along the calm valley, through fields adrift with wildflowers - pastel blue forget-me-nots, sunny dandelion flowers and fuzzy dandelion clocks, delicate pink milkmaids (a.k.a. cuckoo flowers or lady’s smock) waving on their long stems and bold yellow wild mustard flowers echoing fields of rapeseed nearby. When we stop for lunch, we add a few foraged leaves to our sandwiches: milkmaids are a kind of peppery cress and wild mustard is also edible.

Relaxing on the sunny riverbank, the day feels long and lazy, as though the hours have slowed to a halt. The call of skylarks and the whistle of the heritage steam train on the Kent & East Sussex Railway adds to the feeling that the years have been wound back. When we finally drag ourselves away from our dozing, a herd of curious steers is gazing down at us from the track above.

But within half an hour, the sky has clouded over and a chill wind is blowing up from the marshes. At Blackwall Bridge, we re-cross the Rother and join the Sussex Border Path. Maintenance of this 150 mile long distance path has recently been taken over by the Ramblers, and new waymarkers direct us over rolling fields, down hedge-lined farm lanes and through bluebell woods.

We stop in an idyllic grove beside a reed-lined pond for our afternoon tea. Sheltered from the wind, we fall asleep, lulled by the rumble of a tractor ploughing a nearby field. We wake to a splash in the pond and a quiet rustle in the reeds - my partner says he sees a water vole, but my eyes are not so keen!

The last section takes us through Beckley and back to Northiam. We hang over a hedge to watch a delightfully furry pig at Swallowtail Hill farm, negotiate a series of increasingly treacherous stiles, admire an overgrown orchard and are followed by a friendly dog.

There are a few moments of confusion - when we miss a turning, or when the way is overgrown with rapeseed - but soon enough the path deposits us back in Northiam at journey’s end.

This article first appeared as "Words come like flowers at the call of spring" in the Battle Observer, Friday 22 May 2015, page 61. 

Download a GPX file of our route (right) or check my walking tag for more East Sussex walks.
Boating station
Wildflowers
River, rapeseed, sky
Pig!
Northiam circular GPX route
File Size: 11 kb
File Type: gpx
Download File


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Report: Volunteers clean up Hastings Beach

11/6/2015

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A sunny Sunday in May saw around 50 people turn out to take part in the Big Hastings Beach Clean, organised by the community group Clean Seas Please. The beach clean was part of the community’s attempt to improve beach water quality in the area and meet the new bathing water standards.
Pebble beach, buildings and sky
"Hastings Beach, West Hill & Castle" by Andy Wilson (used under a Creative Commons license).
Volunteers spread out along the beach from the Stade to the Pier, armed with litter pickers, rubbish bags and gloves. By the end of the morning, Clean Seas Please reported that 10 full and several part-filled bags had been returned, while people continued clearing the beach well into the afternoon, all the way through St Leonards to Grosvenor Gardens.

Clean Seas Please volunteers were pleasantly surprised by the state of the beach, not finding as much litter as they expected.  Volunteers reminded each other that each piece of plastic or rusty metal was one less risk to birds, fish, animals and other beach users.

But participants did have a bone to pick with dog owners, as canine faeces featured rather heavily along the shore.  Jessica Fay, from Clean Seas Please, said, “Dog poo is a tragic sight to spoil any location, whether it's on the pavement, in the local park or on the beach. It's not hard to simply put it in a bag and in one of the bins along the beach.” Dog faeces contains a large amount of Escherichia coli (E. coli), one of the things tested when measuring water quality.

Last year, when the Environment Agency warned that Hastings beach might fail the new water quality tests, Hastings Borough Council and community groups including Clean Seas Please sprang to action. As well as the movement to clean visible litter from the seafront, Southern Water has undertaken an extensive programme of sewer investigations and improvement work, while Hastings Borough Council has focussed their efforts on cleaning up the stream that flows into the sea at Hastings beach.

The stream, which runs through Alexandra Park, was one of the sources of pollution in previous water quality tests. “We found that some houses were wrongly discharging waste water into this stream because of bad plumbing, and this has now been corrected,” explained Council spokesperson Kevin Boorman. “And we are taking action to enhance the quality of the water by improving its natural filtration, through the use of reed beds.” Hastings Borough Council is now “optimistic” that Hastings will meet the new bathing water quality standards in 2016.

Clean Seas Please thanked the volunteers who attended the beach clean, as well as more than 300 people who shared the event on social media. Jessica Fay noted, “Raising awareness is the first milestone for our campaign and support like that makes it all worth it.”

A version of this article first appeared as "We cleaned the beach! Now dog owners need to clean up their act" in the Hastings Independent, Issue 31, 29 May 2015, p10. Here's a selection of my articles previously published in the Hastings Independent.

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Do the May microadventure round-up waltz

6/6/2015

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May’s microadventure challenge was to go on a lunchtime microadventure. Here’s what people got up to! (Scroll down for June’s theme.)

Go on a picnic

Abby had a mid-week day off work. So did Dan and I. Brilliant! We met up in Tunbridge Wells to see the folk art exhibition, then got down to the serious business of picnic shopping (at M&S, because it is Tunbridge Wells, after all) before jumping in the car and heading out past Groombridge. We discovered a gorgeous spot beside a field of green wheat and spent a happy hour picnicking in the sun. Afterwards, we found a picnic bench on the banks of the young River Medway, where we set up the camp stove and made more than enough tea to quench our hard-earned picnicking thirst.

Visit the botanic gardens

Emily found nature in the heart of Melbourne - autumn colours, a rainforest walk, lily ponds and a greenhouse. She says . . .

I work just out of the CBD, right near the city's war memorial and the main entrance to the botanical gardens (which I'd never entered through before - didn't even know it was there!). I took more than a few lunch time trips of explorations around both this month, and look forward to doing more as weather permits! (Read the full post here.)

Explore a wild place

Dan went exploring on his lunch break one sunny day. He says…

I’ve walked through bits of Speckled Wood a couple of times before. It is an odd place - a mixture of pretty, peaceful woodlands and scrap metal dumping ground. The pathways are labyrinthine. On previous ventures into the wood I have tried to keep a general direction in mind (so that I could get back to work on time). On this expedition, I was deliberately trying to get lost. I took each junction as it came, taking whichever path felt rightest (or leftest) without thinking about how I was going to get back.

The wood straddles the Ore Valley, so much of my walk was spent either scrambling down or clambering up the 60 degree valley walls. This geological feature also meant that it was very easy to orient myself, effectively nullifying my attempt to get lost on my lunch break.

I walked along the bottom of the valley by the stream for a while. After passing the only other person I saw during my stroll, I leapt across the stream over the remains of a bridge and stopped in a clearing to eat my lunch. Despite the accessibility issues, it was obviously a popular spot - a fire pit in the centre of the clearing had seen recent action, as had a number of beer cans. After lunch, I tried to continue to follow the path in the same direction, but it soon came to a dead end. I returned to the clearing and tried another path. Another dead end. A third avenue was similarly blocked. I decided that maybe the bridge had been broken for a reason. I leapt back over it and slowly wended my way up the steep slope and emerged from the woods next to a skip behind a garage next to a church and made it back to work on time.

Cook lunch outside

I foraged a handful of sorrel from the field at the back of our house, chopped it up with a bunch of herbs from our garden, mixed it all with an egg and a bit of soy sauce then sat in our little courtyard and cooked herby scrambled eggs on my beer can stove. The weather was rather gloomy but this microadventure made the whole day a bit more exciting!

Other microadventures

Mags has written up her microadventures for March (explore a waterway) and April (matters relating to railways). She says . . . The River Pont goes on to join the Blyth river further downstream. The river is around 7 miles long and contains a large variety of fish. These include brown trout, grayling, eels perch and some gudgeon. The river has been known to flood, the last time being in 2008 (to my knowledge and research), which affected 19 properties. (Read the full post here.)

Last but not least, here are a couple of sleep-out microadventures. Dan and I slept out in a bluebell wood, which was a magical experience - the photos are almost as lovely as the real thing! Mags also slept out, enjoying a brilliant sunrise and a dewy morning.

June's microadventure theme

This month’s challenge, chosen by Mags is to visit a place of historic interest. How you interpret this is up to you, so it will be interesting to read what people find out. Some ideas:
  • famous people’s residences
  • disused factories and mills
  • sacred sites, places of worship
  • former quarries or mines
  • castles and stately homes
  • battlefields
  • ghost towns
  • places of protest
  • archeological digs
  • rock art sites
  • houses of parliament
  • dismantled railways
  • abandoned infrastructure
  • memorial monuments and plaques
  • ancient woodlands and forests

So get out there and dig up some history (not literally, unless you’re authorised to do that). Let me know where you visit and what you find out so I can add it to the next round-up post!

Abby among the weeds
Abby in the weeds on the banks of the Medway.
Trees in autumn colours
Autumn colours at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (photo by Emily).
Rainforest boardwalk
The rainforest boardwalk at the gardens (photo by Emily).
Footpath into the woods
The footpath into Speckled Wood (photo by Dan).
Footpath in Speckled Wood
Footpath and bridge in Speckled Wood (photo by Dan).
River under a bridge
The River Pont (photo by Mags).
Sunrise through trees
Golden sunrise in a bluebell wood.
Orange sky
A beautiful sunrise in East Sussex (photo by Mags).
Castle surrounded by moat
Bodiam Castle - definitely of historic interest!

Read about our previous monthly challenges: January (spend time on a hill), February (wildlife spotting), March (explore a waterway) and April (matters relating to railways).

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