Trip to the seaside

On Sunday I joined up with the Donegal Butterfly Survey group at Murvagh, west Donegal. Murvagh is on limestone and has excellent coastal grassland and forested areas inland, with the occasional dune and also scarce foodplants, so there is a wide range of unusual butterflies to be found.

When I arrived I immediately saw half a dozen Small Heath butterflies. These are very flighty at this early part of their season, so decent shots are quite difficult:

Small Heath butterfly

A little further along we found Horseshoe Vetch:

Horseshoe Vetch

Horseshoe Vetch is the sole foodplant of the Small Blue butterfly - the smallest butterfly in Europe - so we started to look in sheltered areas behind the dunes:

Small blue butterfly

The wingspan of this specimen was roughly 15 - 17 mm.

Dingy Skippers were seen, although not by my group, so I didn't get a shot of those. I did, however, get a decent shot of the day-flying Burnet Companion moth, which can very easily be mistaken for Dingy Skipper, and is often found in the precise locations that Dingy Skippers prefer:

Burnet Companion moth

One of my favourite early summer flowers is Heath Speedwell, with its tall, thin, elegant spikes of pale mauve flowers. It never gets very tall, with the tallest spikes reaching perhaps 15 cm from ground level. The following shot, however is quite fantastic:

Heath Speedwell and Creeping Willow

The oval-leaved plant surrounding the Speedwell is Creeping Willow, which is actually shorter than the Speedwell, so this 12-15 cm. flower is actually towering above the tree tops!

Here's a shot of the Creeping Willow seeds being produced:

Creeping Willow seed production

Further along the route, we turned more towards the Atlantic and found an interesting mix of plants and insects. This is Marram - the grass that binds the dunes together:

Marram

And this is Lyme Grass, another dune associate:

Lyme Grass

Close to these we found Wild Pansy:

Wild Pansy

And Spiked Sedge (if you think grasses are tricky, try doing sedges):

Spiked Sedge

I also spotted the larva of Garden Tiger moth:

Larva of Garden Tiger moth

And the larva of Dark Green Fritillary (a wonderful and scarce butterfly):

Larva of Dark Green Fritillary

Mouse-ear Hawkweed is identified by its lemon-yellow petals which are squared off and the fuzzy oval leaves:

Mouse-ear Hawkweed

Back at the car park, I noticed a single Cinnabar Moth:

Cinnabar Moth

Cinnabars are entirely dependant on Ragwort for their survival.

More like summer than spring

We've had an extended dry spell and the days have been bright and sunny, encouraging some species out long before I'd expect to see them.

Moths are on schedule, including March Moth:

March Moth (male)

And Clouded Drab:

Clouded Drab

It seems that this specimen has been reading the books for a change, because it is a perfect match for one of the images in the standard reference. All of my previous photographs show specimens that look nothing like the reference images.

Both of these moths are feeders on Willow catkins as an adult, and feed on a wide range of broad-leaf plants as a larva.

The Ptychopterid fly Ptychoptera contaminata is regarded as a summer species, (my previous records are from June and September) but our lunchtime temperature of 15 degrees brought this one out today:

Ptychoptera contaminata

For some reason, this species hasn't reached my species index, so that's another new species for my total (now 1415 species).

Today also brought out my first specimen of Small Tortoiseshell butterfly:

Small Tortoiseshell

These hibernate as adults and usually emerge in March or April to breed the summer generation. Small Tortoiseshells are entirely dependent on Nettles for larval food.

I spotted this early instar of the Garden Tiger moth caterpillar wandering across a path. The image shows a few of the long white hairs which will become a feature in later instars.

Larva of Garden Tiger moth 

A fine set of specimens for a mid-March spring day.

I was on the road quite a bit today and noticed a Sycamore and Horse Chestnut in leaf, a couple of 'white' butterflies flying over verges and Cow Parsley and Sow Thistles in flower. What an amazing spring.

Moths galore

One of the most common caterpillars on my patch is the Garden Tiger moth: they're all over the higher-level plants. This is the first time I've seen the wonderful adult, however:

The white plume moth is the White Plume Moth - Pterophorus pentadactyla, which feeds on Convolvulus (and is one of the few micromoths with a common name). This is another first for me:

And another new first for me is the Satin Beauty - Deileptenia ribeata, which feeds on Norway Spruce. Unsurprisingly, this is an increasing species:
Just for the record, a July Highflyer:

And to finish off for today, my favourite flower, Slender St. John's Wort:

It stopped raining

Photo location:

Hedgerow, Leg 2.

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I still haven't seen a female Orange Tip butterfly this year, but they're obviously around: most specimens of Cardamine pratensis have a single egg. I'll try to follow a few of them as the season progresses.


For the last few years, I've annotated this hoverfly as 'Cheilosia sp.' Today I took images from all angles and have now refined my identification to Cheilosia albitarsis. Most of the identification features are microscopic, although it turns out to be 'dependent on Creeping Buttercup in wet meadows'. Big surprise. The small beast is, of course, the micromoth Micropterix calthella.

And this is a pair of the same micromoth. When I find these 'in cop', one is always dark, the other more bronzy. Dunno which is which, though.


The caterpillar of the Garden Tiger moth is one of the most handsome that we have. No points for the plant.


I initially thought this click beetle was damaged, but the close-up reveals that it is cleaning its left antenna.


The fungal rust Triphragmium ulmariae is very obvious on the undersides of Meadowsweet leaves.