October roundup and who's been wallowing in my pond mud?

I am back from a week spent with my Mum in not so sunny Somerset, one of the reasons I've been quiet since my last post. More about that further on because I want to show pics I've taken throughout the month in some vague order. I have only taken photos on my phone as I wasn't really in the mood for shooting anything much in my garden for the gazillionth time, so these are just a few things that I found or that happened along the way. 

Andrea the hen 'helping' after I'd just weeded the tubs. I am down to only two hens now as the one who had scaly leg mite died, poor thing. I'm not replacing them and guess what, we just had to BUY some eggs!!! Both hens are now in full moult so have stopped laying.

And here she is pecking at maggots from the bag of bird peanuts that we found wriggling. It really annoys me when that happens as they are really expensive to buy and aren't always available, hence us usually buying several bags at a time. The hens weren't interested in eating the peanuts though, but luckily (or not) we had a nighttime visitor a few nights ago who came and scoffed them up. K spotted a fox one night just after he'd put the outside light on looking for Harry who hadn't come in. He thought it was Harry for a moment until he realised Harry didn't have such big ears and a pointy face. I'm wary about a fox getting into the garden and fear for the cats as well as the ducks, but as it happened dear Harry was safe as he'd got himself locked in the barn for the night! It was pretty cool seeing the fox though.

I spotted this Small Heath butterfly roosting on the Golden Rod at about 5pm one evening, long before we changed the clocks.

I also found this huge Fox Moth caterpillar. You can see from the photo with my hand just how big it is.

And now, something very interesting - another thing that's both exciting to see but also makes me wary about such a thing getting into the garden. This is up the far end of the pond where the stream comes in and the shallowest area of lake, so it dries up when the pond level is very low (it's down about 4 foot or more right now). Well now, what might have caused this? There was a trail of deep footprints and a big area that had been wallowed in. We conclude it must have been a wild boar, because the footprints are cloven and have sunk in very deeply compared to the other pawprints around it.

It might be best if you click on this photo to view it larger, as you can see coarse hair marks in the mud, just like a wild boar had been lying against it.

Again, if you look closer at the next photo you can see pawprints which at the time I thought either dog or fox, and now that we know that a fox got in, I'm guessing they must be fox tracks. The wild boar's tracks are much deeper. 

We realised that we never repaired a hole in the fence where the fence crosses the stream, so that has now been rectified (although the fox was spotted after that was done, so must be getting in through one of the holes where the cats get out. We can't repair every bit of damaged fence wire under the hedge.)

Our 'tree man' has just been to give a quote for felling more overcrowded trees and thinks he may be able to remove the stand of alders that fell over into the pond earlier in the year. Part of it is still in water, the rest in mud too squidgy to walk on and I have no idea how deep that mud is as I don't want to lose my wellies! I guess planks to stand on is the way to go. 

Piccy of the cats, though no Hallie. The lawn is how we found it when we came back from hols after it had finally rained - very blotchy. We're still awaiting the autumn rains.

Back to England, I had a lovely time, a lot of it spent eating all my favourite things! I love clotted cream and having a cream tea was so good I had to take a photo of it. K stayed at home looking after the menagerie and I flew over and my brother picked me up from Southampton airport. Sadly Flybe only use the Exeter route for a few months in the summer now and in fact there are no flights to Southampton during winter anymore. I came home on the last flight of the year. Both flights were full by the way. Conclude from that what you will.

It was gloomy most days but I did a bit of gardening for Mum and got out for a nice long walk with the husband of a friend of my Mum with his dog, which was great as it was a round trip walk that otherwise I would never have known existed. We saw dozens of pheasants. Here is a pic from the top of Mum's garden with the neighbour's Sumac tree looking really colourful.

On the way home I had a good view and the sun came out as soon as we hit France (of course!) so I took a load of photos as we were coming in to land. Love these old prop planes!

And then it was back to collecting yet more walnuts to add to the pile, and yet more huge windfall apples. I intend to stew up a load of apples and freeze them as apple sauce.

I did take a few photos of the garden with my phone. My Forest Pansy has been looking great all October, but we just had a proper white frost the other day so tons of leaves have dropped off the trees now.

And here's the pond showing how low it is, with the fallen tree just visible at the far end.

I've not been terribly in the mood for blogging - think I'm suffering from blog writer's block. It doesn't help that the depression is lurking now the gloomy weather is back, although it's mostly kept at bay by my medication. So if my posts are sporadic then that will be why. I have recently had a CT scan for my twice annual check up and everything was fine, so that's one year clear of cancer now! And I don't have a hernia which I thought I had. I do have a bulge which is why I thought I had one, but the scan just shows fat..... :-)

A visit by the Queen of Spain, another Lepidoptera lifer and some Skipper caterpillars (all within two days!)

I was hardly expecting to see any new butterflies this year at this late stage in the season, but whaddya you know - I've seen two lifers in two days!! Coupled with a Skipper which I haven't seen for a couple of years, and isn't exactly common in my garden.......

It all started when I noticed a self seeded lavatera (aka mallow) in a now weedy shrub bed where we removed a rather old and leaning precariously lavatera this spring, to make space for a different shrub I'd planted near it last year. I noticed it was looking rather chomped and that there were several leaves curled up upon themselves. Closer inspection revealed some grey looking caterpillars within. I decided I'd check what a Mallow Skipper caterpillar looked like but thought that was wishful thinking. 

Next thing I know, I'm walking past the veg patch thinking "oh there's another Silver Y moth nectaring on some flowers", when I suddenly realised, "ohmigod, no it's not!". It was in fact a rather worn looking Mallow Skipper. I think these skippers are one of the last skipper species to be seen in the season - indeed I haven't seen a skipper at all since about the end of July. It's been a couple of years since I saw one of these guys so that was rather exciting, and I managed some zoomed in photos through the fence wire of the veg patch whilst it was feeding on several flowers.

It wasn't until the next day that I got around to checking out their caterpillars, and amazingly that is exactly what those grey guys wrapped up in the lavatera leaves were! I just had to have a closer look so apologies to the caterpillar but I removed one from its leaf to get some shots, then put it carefully back later. These caterpillars will overwinter as larvae before pupating in the spring. I'm not sure though if they will stay there wrapped up in the leaves, as although these lavatera plants don't tend to drop all their leaves in autumn, they don't all stay put either (I'm trying to remember here as I don't normally think about it). However I also have some wild mallows in the chicken run and those plants die back almost completely during winter, most of the stems too, so I've no idea what happens to the caterpillars if the butterflies lay their eggs on those wild plants. 

I'm leaving the caterpillars be and not going to try to raise them indoors, as they'll be perfectly happy outside and I won't disturb the plant until the spring when it can be weeded out. I have other lavatera and I don't want or need any more.

Mallow Skipper (Carcharodus alceae) on Verbena bonariensis.

Mallow Skipper (Carcharodus alceae) on a Marigold (with annoying stem in the way
but I was the other side of the fence so it couldn't be helped!).

And a few more pics of the Mallow Skipper.
You can click on the photo to view it larger.

Here's the caterpillar of the Mallow Skipper (Carcharodus alceae).

They are easy to ID with the yellow marking behind the head.

This is the small Lavatera plant showing some of the curled up leaves
which contain a caterpillar inside.

That in itself was excitment enough as up to now the only butterfly caterpillars I have found have been Large and Small Whites and Swallowtails. But!! A little while later I was wandering past a forsythia thinking "is that a flower?!!" - yes it was; there were in fact two flowers - must be something to do with the rain we had in August and September which has made some of my shrubs flower again. Then I noticed a small brownish butterfly perched above my head - oh joy - that makes three Hairstreaks which I've seen in my garden now. It's a Brown Hairstreak and the host plant is blackthorn (aka sloe), although they also use bullace. This forsythia is very close to my three plum trees, which include a damson (or bullace), so here's hoping it may have laid some eggs!

Brown Hairstreak (Thecla betulae) on Forsythia branch.

Brown Hairstreak (Thecla betulae) - it's a female as I can see
from this and other photos the golden patch on the
upperside of the forewing showing through.

Not the best photos ever but a lot better than none of something so totally unexpected!

I think those of you who are butterfly lovers will have guessed how over the moon I was at those three finds..... so guess how I felt the very next day to see that Spanish royalty had deigned to visit my veg patch?! I didn't know which fritillary this was at the time and took loads of photos - I had to zoom in as I didn't want to disturb it trying to get closer, but it was a very obliging butterfly who flitted a few feet away and would come back again, sometimes actually stopping on the bark chippings by my feet! He or she kept opening and closing its wings all the time which was a qood thing as I knew I'd need a pic with the underwing markings to help with ID. I was tickled pink when I found out it was a Queen of Spain Fritillary as I'd always imagined that butterfly to be something special and regal and probably only living in Spain...... but they are migratory so visit Brittany! The host plants, amongst others, are borage and heartsease violas, of which there are plenty in the veg patch, but I don't know if they breed around here. According to Wikipedia "it is resident in southern Sweden and Finland, and on the coastal sand dunes of the Netherlands (Bretherton, 1990)" so you never know.

Queen of Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia).

Queen of Spain Fritillary (Issoria lathonia).

A totally amazing butterfly week! :-)

By the way I have identified that flower from my last post as Honeywort or Siberian Motherwort (Leonurus sibiricus). Google it and there is little information about it regarding its virtues as an ornamental plant or whether it's a great nectar plant for pollinators. But there is plenty of discussion about smoking it or drinking it as 'tea'. It appears to have another common name.... Marijuanilla! ;-)

It's starting to feel a bit like autumn

I'm one of those people who refuse to accept that it is autumn before the due date, i.e. the autumn equinox. However all the signs are appearing, from the cooler mornings with dewy grass showing up tiny webs which I try not to step on, and larger orb webs visible when I let the chickens out early in the morning. After the rain some shroomy things have been appearing, though not like the amounts we'll get later on in real autumn. Robins seem to have returned; although I don't think they go away, they always seem absent during the summer and then appear to come back because they start singing when the others birds stop, and continue singing all through the winter. Thank goodness for Robins! The late summer butterflies are back and lovely and colourful, ditto the late summer damselflies and dragonflies I see here. And we are eating our pears and it won't be long before the first apples are ready - they are already looking plump and red on our best eating apple trees. 

Gathering pears - we have two more trees
but there are not many on them.

Looking for Wasp Spiders at home with a helper.
We didn't find any here.

The bit of lawn that was brownest is greening up nicely,
although half of that green is weeds!
Some bits have had to be mown already.

A fat fungi I've never seen before -
the stalk is more than an inch in diameter.

About four feet away this little one came up,
which after three days is now looking like the one above.
Any ideas anyone?

This is a nymph of the Striped Shield Bug (Graphosoma lineatum),
the red and black stripey bug.

This true bug I have no idea! All I know is that it's not the
Green Shield Bug (Palomena prasina) cos I found one in the garden
and checked out its underside..... I love the colours, whatever this is!
And before you ask, I have no idea why I did not take
a photo of its top side..... hmmm!

Back to those bug eggs again - this is the best I could do.
They do look like tiny bugs emerging, but as the eggs are 1mm wide,
I really can't do any better than this.

On the M. W. Walk, we came across this beautiful dragonfly.
It's a Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta) and probably a young male,
as the mature males tend to have a blue/brown abdomen.

I had to take a few photos as I've never seen this dragonfly before so here it is again.....
Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta)

At home the Western Willow Spreadwings (Lestes viridis, or Chalcolestes viridis) have appeared.
They are always happy to perch on vegetation near the pond.

Western Willow Spreadwing (Lestes viridis, or Chalcolestes viridis).

Another Harvestman, quite different from the one I showed last post.
I've never delved into Harvestman identification so I'm hoping JJ might know! :-)

Sawfly larvae on a small Alder tree by the pond.
This one in the foreground has just had a moult, and you can see the
discarded skin under the first three true legs on the twig.
Its head will darken up like the other one after a few hours.

On the same tree I found this tussock moth larva. It looks very like a Vapourer Moth (Orgyia antiqua) but the tail end is a bit different and not the normal dark colour. However I can't find any other European tussock moth whose caterpillar looks remotely like this, so maybe it isn't a final instar one??

Vapourer Moth (Orgyia antiqua) caterpillar - I think!

Vapourer moth (Orgyia antiqua) caterpillar - I think!

This moth was on a stinging nettle by the orchard -
it doesn't have a common name, only Latin, Carcina quercana.

Butterflies gorging on rotting plums - Red Admiral, Peacock, Comma and in the pic bottom left,
there are two Commas and a Red Admiral. I'm too lazy to add Latin names but you
European peeps know these butterflies well!

I'm adding a final photo but I'll keep it hidden from those who don't like spiders so you will have to click to see it. I had been doing a bit of gardening and whilst wandering around, felt something tickling my shoulder. I put my hand inside my T-shirt and felt something furry! Eeeks! I freaked thinking it might be a wasp or a bee, as I react badly to wasp stings and don't fancy being stung by anything, particularly right now; lord knows what would happen with my buggered immune system. So I hurriedly stripped off down to bra in the garden (not overlooked thank goodness!), turned my T-shirt inside out, and was hugely relieved to find it was 'only' a large Cross Orb Weaver! Phew. :-) Pic here.

After a lovely few days it looks like cooler wet weather is coming back again but at least I got out away from the house twice this week, and I'm meeting up with friends for lunch next week and desperately need to get a hair cut too (preferably before seeing friends...). So many things to do whilst I've got a bit of energy. Still not heard from the hospital as to when my last chemo will be, but quite frankly right now I don't care! 

More moths, baby Oak Eggar caterpillars and some good news

I have some great news to share which has nothing to do with moths, but just in case anyone looks in and thinks oh god, not moths and doesn't bother going any further..... well I was in the hospital Thurs and Fri having chemo no. 10 and Keith went down to see the Oncologist's secretary to get my appt times for nos. 11 and 12. Only to be told there wouldn't be a no. 12 and my last session would be 3rd and 4th September! Apparently this is due to me taking that break in July, and they didn't want to prolong my treatment beyond the date that I was due to finish.... that makes little sense to me but I guess he can see from my bloodwork and other tests that all seems well so I can stop a bit early. The other good news is that I don't have to have any more weekly jabs or daily pills for anaemia, as both my haemoglobin (and most other things to do with red blood cells) and my platelet count are back to normal again. I'm just left with white blood cells being low. So a HUGE hooray going on in this household, as that means only one more to go, and I can start to feel better two weeks earlier than envisaged, and that means with still possible good weather and chances of getting out for a few walks and trips to the coast etc. :-))))))))

Back to moths, I am behind as always but I put the moth trap out three times before the last but one chemo session - these are from 2nd, 3rd and 5th August. I'm just going to share the more interesting and groovy looking moths trapped, and a few of the more drab ones that I did manage to (or almost manage to) ID. Am I allowed to call moths drab? Well, a lot of them are! But for all those hard to ID browny grey jobs, there are some absolute stunners, like the chap or chappess below, of which there were three, two in the trap and one on the wall by the potting shed. 

It's interesting seeing how the temperature makes a difference to the amount of moths trapped, as one night the temp dipped to 8.8C on my outside windowsill and I caught the grand total of 11 moths. Usually when the night temps are around 14C+, I'm getting about 50. Also I seem to get more when I put the trap out in the open nearer the house, than under the lime trees near the more wooded part of the garden. I usually find a few moths on the stone walls of the house too when I place it not far from the house.

Gorgeous Leopard Moth (Zeuzera pyrina).

Leopard Moth close up showing the lovely irridescent
blue markings on the thorax and legs.

The same metallic blue is visible on the tip of the abdomen
but it was washed out a bit by using flash.

Despite the beauty of the moth above, this Lappett is my favourite catch of the ones I haven't yet shared. I seem to be doing OK with the family Lasiocampidae, but then I'm not surprised as I've found a fair few of their caterpillars in the garden over the last few years.

The Lappet (Gastropacha quercifolia) in its flapping wings prior to take off position!

A closer up showing that amazing snout like 'nose' and blue colour on the antennae.

The Lappet in its typical imitating a dead oak leaf position.
Yes it flew off and here it is on my beamed ceiling!

Now onto some drab ones but I have been finding quite a lot of them so I was interested to find out what they were.

Great Dart (Agrotis bigramma) - pretty sure of ID but could be wrong!
Link to a French site showing pictures of it.

Great Dart showing the white underwing.

And another picture of it.

Waved Umber (Menophra abruptaria).
There is a 2nd generation in France which flies until September.

Flame Shoulder (Ochropleura plecta).

The following I'm pretty sure are Pine Processionary moths. I'm not surprised to find them as I have their caterpillar nests in my pine trees. The first time I saw these fluffy nests in Greece I thought they were made by a spider! They have a bad rep because they are supposed to be a real pest of pine forests, but worse than that is the hairy caterpillar, which is something that you don't want to ever touch. Apparently they can shoot out highly toxic hairs if they are disturbed and these can cause nasty itchy skin complaints. Even worse if dogs sniff them out or try to eat them - I've heard tales of dogs having to have parts of their tongues removed due to this. So we are very wary of them. 

I've only seen a small procession of them once in our garden and I must say we carefully removed them and destroyed them, because they were in the vicinity of where we at the time fed the ducks, and ducks snuffle in the grass whilst feeding and drinking. You'll see from the photo a few down from here what a real procession of them looks like - where we saw them up in the Pyrenees mountains there were hundreds of these processions, some metres long, and lots of them squashed over the road as well. I was very glad I had my hiking boots on rather than sandals and we walked around careful not to tread on them and so we had no problem - but there were no signs anywhere to warn tourists about them!

Pine Processionary (Thaumetopoea pityocampa).

Pine Processionary showing what looks like some pine sap on wings.

Pine Processionary Moth caterpillars in a huge procession
up in the Pyrenees mountains 2010.

The next four photos feature two moths for whom I have managed to get ID down to either Common Rustic or Lesser Common Rustic. It's impossible for me to tell whether I have two different species or a different colour variation of the same species...and which one, as they both can have white markings, or not!

I know the big one is Mrs Oak Eggar!

Same moth as above.

Same moth as above.

Different moth, but is it the same species but with less pronounced white markings?

Going back a bit, the first time I put out the moth trap an Oak Eggar laid some eggs. I kept meaning to put them out in the garden, although I knew that wouldn't really help the eggs as I couldn't exactly glue them to a leaf. After some time I thought they were not viable and with one thing and another they got a bit forgotten and were still sitting on the kitchen table in a specimen pot. Well lo and behold very luckily I suddenly noticed movement in the pot and there were loads of tiny caterpillars! First I picked some bramble leaves for them and most immediately headed for the leaves, so the next day I was able to put those leaves out wedged in amongst other bramble leaves so they could move off amongst the plant and get fresh leaves. For those remaining in the pot I picked a few oak leaves and they seemed to prefer them to bramble. I finally had a bright idea of how to fix the oak leaves up in the tree..... as you will see further down.  

(I am a bit confused as some sites say Oak Eggar larvae don't eat oak leaves, and some do....)

Taken with macro lens but more distant.

A bit closer up taken with my macro lens - I'm glad I took the trouble
to look at them up close as they are very cute and incredibly hairy!

I found some little pegs and pegged those leaves onto the oak leaves on the tree!

As usual, if I've got any ID wrong, please let me know! :-)

I put the trap out again on the 19th and caught a nice selection this time with moths with more pronounced markings, so I'm in the process of trying to ID them. Some I've managed thanks to Hants Moths 'Flying Tonight' but I'm sure I'll be asking for your help with some of them - as I have all the continental ones this side of the channel to contend with too and some of them could be 'foreign' ones. Aaarrggh! Fun though. :-) 

By the way, the garden is looking a lot happier after that rain we had, plus a shower on Thursday morning. We are due what might be a lot of rain for about three or four days starting tonight, so the less watering we have to do the better and the grass should green up even more, and hopefully it'll be enough to give the deeper rooted shrubs a good boost! This morning seems like the last of the sun so I am going to get out and take some more photos and enjoy the sun, as I'm surprisingly feeling OK for the moment. I'm just waiting for the nurse to come to unhook me from my diffuser and take out my needle and I'll be free - for 48 hours I have to carry this diffuser around with me in a bum bag (fanny pack to my American friends) and whilst it's not really a big deal, I am always glad to be shot of it!