Randy goes home and moths from March and April

Aaarrrggghhhh!!! What a wasted week. I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back whilst gardening Sunday evening and have spent most of the last four days in bed. Lying down was the only way I could be fairly pain free, as standing or walking I had constant back pain and sciatic pain down one leg. Sitting was in between. It was doubly annoying as I was finally feeling raring to go in the garden. I'm now up but I'll have to leave the gardening for a few more days and take it very easy to start with. Hoping to get away for an overnighter in the Moho next week too.

OK so what's this about Randy? Well it all went horribly wrong. He started picking on one of my hens and to cut a long story short she had to be put down as he inflicted some horrible injuries on her, splitting her skin under her wings with his claws as he continually raped her. The other hens were starting to peck her too whilst he held her down, and he went for me claws flying when I yelled at him and chased him off.  This all happened not long before we went to England. Once poor Goldie had gone all went quiet and back to normal with the chickens! I mentioned it all to my neighbour who was looking after them whilst we were away and then we got a text from her whilst in England. He started it again with another hen, one of the older ones this time. So Randy got shut out of the run, on the garden side, with the old duck shed to sleep in at night. When we came back he'd worn down paths in the grass all the way along beside the run - I won't say 'poor guy' as we were really cross with him, but I did feel a little sorry for him as he was desperate for a shag! 

Anyway he was saved from being put down by his previous owner saying she would take him back. She wanted to see how he'd do with a larger flock, and her hens are much larger than mine too, being the same breed as he is, and she'd just lost a cockerel so the timing was right. So now I'm down to four hens but still getting three eggs most days, and hens being hens they don't seem to care or even notice whether there is a cockerel in with them or not!

Onto the moth trapping. I need to keep a record of moths that I catch though I am not counting numbers of individual species or overall totals. I had the trap out for two nights in March and just once in April, as there were very few opportunities when it was not likely to rain at night time.

March moths were few and far between and were common species, but April got a little more interesting. May species will be a separate post. Talk about getting behind with the blogging!

Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica).

Small Quaker (Orthosia cruda).

Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi).

I'm not sure what this moth is in the next two photos.

Now who is this lovely fluffy creature? (The following are April moths).

It's a Great Prominent (Peridea anceps). I caught several of them and they were very sleepy so great for photographing! They are big too. Sorry about the underneath of my fingernail. :-)

Muslin Moth (Diaphora mendica). This is a male - the females are white with black spots.

Suddenly a gust of wind blew it over so I captured its fluffy underneath bits. What lovely colours and markings.

Another don't know but it doesn't have its wings open enough for me to ID it.

There were also several Chafer Bugs which give me the creeps, but this little unknown beetley thing was really cute.

I had the trap out again a couple of times in May and caught a number of interesting looking moths plus one special one, so will share these soon.