Heatwave!

Blazing June really lived up to the name this year. Instead of the usual change at midsummer into a pattern of wet westerlies, the rain has been noticeably absent for over a month, until yesterday morning, when, for a few hours, it varied between drizzle and downpour.

It was fine but still chilly at the end of May, the Lilac and the Ladies Smock a fortnight late. At the start of June, good weather was forecast and there was the usual rubbish reporting of temperatures in the high twenties, as if that were everywhere and not just the home counties. At the end of the first week of June, the warmth had begun to break through and it suddenly seemed as though we'd caught up after the late spring.

I don't remember any rain until the morning of 17 June, when there had already been a little shower when I went to empty the moth trap, and I finished that just in time before another light shower.  I have a snapshot of Xena sprawled on a bit of old wood in the back garden, surrounded by damp soil, taken on 20 June. I think that might have been the morning I found about 2mm of water in a bucket. I found this website quite useful as an aide-memoire, but it only shows humidity, rather than rainfall. Then no rain, it just got hotter and hotter until we had days and days of weather in the mid-twenties, too hot to work in the garden for long. This was cool compared to what the home counties had to endure. The poor cats spent all their time trying to find patches of cool shade to sprawl in, often in the long grass, under the hedge, in a shady spot on the patio, or flopped onto the tiles in the utility room.

On 29 June I was fed up with feeling as though I was melting and declared a beach afternoon. A friend and I went to Broadhaven, where we set up the UV shelter, covered ourselves in factor 50 and had a picnic and a swim as the tide came in over the hot sand. The water felt a bit chilly - reported on the lifeguards' board as 14 degrees. I'd found my pocket kite and took it along, but there was scarcely any wind, so it would not stay up.

Eventually, on Sunday 1 July, there was a yellow weather warning for thunderstorms. I watched the lightning maps for a while as the storm played south of Exeter and then made its way up to Somerset to give a Chard a bit of a show before it fizzled out. Anyone on holiday in Brittany and Normandy would have had to shelter from tremendous thunderstorms, the maps thick with yellow and red dots from lightning strikes! The weather warning here came to nothing. Another one for last Friday was cancelled too. Some showery rain was forecast, and I leaned on my fork in the front garden, sweaty face turned to the sky as the first drops fell ... and then stopped.

It feels as though I've spent weeks with sweat dripping down my back and into my eyes. Yesterday evening, a cool 14 degrees tempted me to put on a jumper. The forecast is still reasonably fine, cloudy with sunny spells and several degrees cooler, with another light shower due later.

There was a time during the winter/early spring, when the ground was completely waterlogged. I remember sploshing my way down the garden, with water pooling on the surface in places. Now, any dampness is locked in the baked clay soil. Worms have tied themselves in knots to aestivate deeper in the soil. Plants without tap roots and which like damp soils, like Primroses and Lady's Smock, have struggled and in some cases died. I'm not sure whether my new, expensive roses will make it, either, despite my best efforts to keep the pots watered. On the other hand, the brambles have loved it, sending up new shoots from their deep roots.

The Big Butterfly Count starts this Friday and schools break up for summer holidays next week. I wonder if decent summer weather will continue, or will the westerlies bring rain? We could do with a downpour to clear the air.

Early June moth trapping

Compared to the 23-24 May, there were many more moths in the trap when I looked at it early on 5th June. I had so much quiet fun, and had forgotten how addictive going through the trap contents can be. You just never really know what you're going to get. But, deary me, my identification skills are so rusty, I'm still trying to sort everything out a month later!

A benefit of setting up the trap on my patio is that I can sit on the swing seat while I empty it and record the contents (and the swing seat canopy shades the light from shining directly into my next-door neighbour's back bedroom. The light doesn't bother me, but it would be unfair to disrupt other people's sleep!)
Another benefit is that, if it's warm enough, I can deal with the contents while I'm still in my pyjamas and then go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
I sat in the early light, with just my cats, the moths and various birds for company. Well before the builders in the field behind me started work with their noisy machinery, I could hear a skylark singing. The jackdaws in the chimney were talking, the young making sleepy chackling noises. Sparrows cheeped and twittered and the Blackbirds took turns in and out of the privet. It was bliss.

As it was already light, some of the moths in the box were impatient to go and a few escaped before I could record them. Remembering my training and tips from the former Carmarthenshire county moth recorder, Jon Baker, (if you're slow on ID, photograph everything as you empty the trap), I grabbed my camera and managed to snap the next escapee as it settled briefly on the paving. So pretty! What are you?

I'd caught an unusual angle, but I recognised the white markings; a Gold Spot, Plusia festucae. I've only had one before, several years ago, when I found a pupa loosely attached to a broken flag iris stem by the farm pond. I mused over the white markings I could see through the case ...

and kept it safe for a week or so until it hatched into a fresh and beautiful adult, which I then released back near the pond.

With the moths in the box fairly secure, I looked around for those which hadn't settled in the trap. A strikingly-marked moth was sitting on the side of the growhouse. Yet another which is common but new to me: a Treble-bar, Aplocera plagiata ssp plagiata. It occurred to me that I should start a new list of the moths I've had since I moved to Pembrokeshire.

As I worked my way back to the box and then through the box contents, the number of different species began to mount up. I found another 'Ooo, what are you?' and new one for me on the frame of the swing-seat: a Figure of Eighty, Tethea ocularis.

Look, it says '80' on the wings!

My digital camera isn't the best for close-up shots, but it's proving an essential aid. This cute, tiny thing is responsible for at least some of the leaf-mines on the lilac. Like so many micromoths, it only has a Latin name: Gracillaria syringella. There are English names around for most of the common micromoths, but few have been formally accepted. It would make things easier - the multi-syllable Latin names can be cumbersome. I saw this was informally called a Common Slender, although I would have thought Lilac Leaf-miner would be more accurate. Although you could argue that it's neither lilac-coloured, nor exclusive to lilac (it likes privet, too, and it's welcome to it!).

Gracillaria syringella

Reviewing the photos, I realised that some snapshots weren't as helpful as I'd hoped. Many of the smaller micros are shown in the books in side view and I'd taken a dorsal (top/back view). Then there are some moths which are highly variable. Thank goodness for online sites and help from other local moth recorders!

There were loads of Common Marbled Carpets, which needed to be checked in case they were in fact Dark Marbled Carpets. Dark Spectacles, checked in case they were just The Spectacles. I tussled over the difference between two very similar, but subtly different moths, one of which was a Poplar Grey. The other was a Knot Grass, and I remembered I'd seen a Knot Grass caterpillar sometime previously. A third, plainer grey moth turned out to be another new one for me, the Miller. Were the Small Square Spots really SSS or Ingrailed Clays? (Working from forewing base to tip, is the colour pattern of the outer crossline dark-pale-dark (=Ingrailed Clay) or just pale-dark (=Small Square Spot).) I even managed, with much cross-referencing to other online photos, to identify the two pugs (Grey and Common).
It's like a game of spot the difference (and spot the moth, in the case of a Poplar Hawk-moth which had settled on the pebble-dashed wall) where you also need to take into account the likelihood of the species' occurrence, based on flight season, distribution and status (abundance, or not) for where you are in the UK.

Did I say something about a lack of moths here when I emptied the late May catch? Silly girl, be careful what you wish for! I ended up with 121 moths of 48 species (and that's of course not including the ones which got away!). I'm not going to list them all here, the photos above pretty much cover the wow factor! Highest numbers were Elephant Hawk-moth (13) and Common Marbled Carpet (11). No wonder it's taken me a long time to sort them all out. Hopefully, surely, I'll get quicker as I get back into practice!