Wildlife blog by Ron Allen 18 December 2023
Of Moth-ers and mothing and other wintry things
‘Moth-ers’ are citizen scientists who study moths by ‘mothing’; that is, finding, identifying, and recording moths on local and national databases. Mothing is a substantial hobby. The Hantsmoths Facebook page alone has 535 members, many of which will be hunting moths by day, trapping them at night, and sending in their records. Moths are important indicators of the health of our environment. Adult moths are food for bats and immense numbers of their caterpillars support our garden songbirds. Many of our moths, like many butterflies, are long distance migrants from north Africa, western and eastern Europe, and Asia.
But what is a moth and what is a butterfly?
Modern genetics has shown that the answer is complex. Some moths seem more related to our smaller butterflies and butterflies seem to fit midway between the range of moth species having evolved from moths in the distant past; some moths are larger than butterflies and many moths are more brightly coloured than many of our butterflies. Both moths and butterflies seem to have common ancestors in the tree of life.
What of moths in winter?
The Hantsmoths website, ‘Flying Tonight’ https://www.hantsmoths.org.uk/flying_tonight.php lists 67 moths that have been recorded during this week over the past 10 years although perhaps only five species are regularly recorded in mid-December: winter moth, December moth, light brown apple moth, mottled umber, and the chestnut moth. The other 62 species have only rarely been recorded this late in the year.
Winter moths. Recently, while driving our local lanes on not too cold December nights, Mary and I have seen hundreds of Winter moths caught in the headlights. Most nights I take a torch to the wooded end of our garden and at this time of year can easily see 10 to 20 of these small silvery male moths flitting about in all directions like snowflakes and settling upright on twigs and fence posts (image 1) and presumably all trying to detect the pheromones of flightless females which in turn are attempting to lure in the males. I have only once seen a female and that was on 14 December mating with a male moth (image 2). Females lay their eggs on tree buds, which hatch in the spring and on which their larvae feed before pupating in mid-summer and emerging in the autumn and early winter.
Also, at the end of the garden over the last few days, I have also seen several of the rich reddish-brown coloured chestnut moths (image 3) and, in the moth trap, dark hairy December moths (image 4) are frequent.
1 One of the many winter moths at the end of our garden on a fence post at night.
2 The wingless female winter moth is at the top of the twig mating with the upside-down male below.
3 Chestnut moth on a hazel twig at night.
4 December moths are one of the commonest moths in the trap this mid-December.
Moth caterpillars are either in hibernation or out feeding and I have seen several green caterpillars of the angle shades moth (image 5) on our hazel bushes over the last few days.
Green lacewings (image 6) and long-legged harvestman (image 7) are also attracted to the moth trap.
I am writing this in mid-December. Tawny owls are calling at night, robins are now singing loudly by day, and flocks of blue and great tits flit about our oak tree. Badgers are foraging for earthworms at night, foxes are on the lookout for anything small that moves, and grey squirrels and field mice are searching for food amongst the leaf litter. A single frog appears most nights in our pond (image 8).
Even some butterflies are about, a red admiral was seen recently in Stroud, and I yesterday I disturbed a peacock butterfly resting in our log pile (image 9).
Moth caterpillars are either in hibernation or out feeding and I have seen several green caterpillars of the angle shades moth (image 5) on our hazel bushes over the last few days.
Green lacewings (image 6) and long-legged harvestman (image 7) are also attracted to the moth trap.
I am writing this in mid-December. Tawny owls are calling at night, robins are now singing loudly by day, and flocks of blue and great tits flit about our oak tree. Badgers are foraging for earthworms at night, foxes are on the lookout for anything small that moves, and grey squirrels and field mice are searching for food amongst the leaf litter. A single frog appears most nights in our pond (image 8).
Even some butterflies are about, a red admiral was seen recently in Stroud, and I yesterday I disturbed a peacock butterfly resting in our log pile (image 9).
5 Caterpillar of the angle shades moth.
6 Green lacewings are surprisingly still about.
7 Harvestman at the light trap, distantly related to spiders.
8 A frog appears in the pond most nights.
9 This peacock butterfly was resting on the firewood and soon flapped its wings and was off.
10 The winter gall of the cherry gall wasp.
Oak galls. On a fallen dead oak leaf, I recently found the winter gall of the cherry gall wasp Cynips quercus-folii (image 10). Like other gall wasps, these insects have a fascinating ‘alternation of generations’. Their cherry galls are brightly coloured in the summer, and my book on plant galls explains that these cherry galls are formed by the leaf reacting to a single fertilised female gall wasp egg. Females escape their galls in winter after the galls have fallen to the ground. These females then lay both male and female eggs (without the need for a male) in dormant oak buds which form tiny galls. Males and females escape in June and give rise to fertilised eggs which develop in the cherry galls and so the cycle starts again.
Finally, some fungal fruiting bodies are still around. These clouded funnel fungi (image 11) have produced a small group of toadstools at the end of the garden, but they can form large fairy rings. Pretty pink Rosy bonnets appeared as a cluster of three within a nearby wood pile (image 12).