A Year of Insects - Moths

It's been my best ever year for moths, here's the list of species I've seen and been able to identify, with photos where available, or links to websites with photos if I've not got my own photos

Six spot burnet moth, 2 July, Musselburgh

(this photo is available to buy in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop)

lunar yellow underwing, 8 September, Musselburgh

latticed heath, 2 July, Musselburgh

also 

silver ground carpet 25 June Colinton Dell
lesser broad bordered yellow underwing (?) 17 July in our living room!
  Udea lutealis 3 September Musselburgh

You can find out more about UK moths on the UK moths website.

If you prefer a book as your field guide then I can definitely recommend The Concise Guide to Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Martin Townsend and Paul Waring illustrated by Richard Lewington and published by British Wildlife Publishing. It might not solve all your id queries immediately, as moths can be very tricky, but it's certainly a very useful guide. 

I recently blogged about A Year of Insects - Hoverflies.

Easter Craiglockart Hill

The day started out bright and still and unseasonably warm as we walked up Easter Craiglockart Hill.

A kestrel hovered above the grass, swerved away but held it's own against the rising winds. It dropped right down to hover just a foot or so above the grass then dropped into the grass. It flew up again, nothing in its beak. It flew away to the trees, but still hovered. Then as storm clouds began to gather, another kestrel appeared, hovering over the golf course.

As both kestrels flew off, we walked back into the woods and found this strange looking fungus, which I don't think either of us have seen before, but I've identified it as Purple Jelly fungus (Ascocoryne sarcoides).

In the Dells

It's beautifully autumnal in Colinton Dell just now.

The larch tree I'm studying for Tree Following is starting to turn subtly yellow and lose some of its needles. The cones are mature but haven't yet opened to release the seeds.

Last year's cones are still on the tree, if you look carefully you can see that they have opened and they'll be empty of seeds.

There were lots of birds around today, but only one wanted to be photographed. This grey heron got a good view of the river from this waste water pipe!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Lovely Shadows in Colinton Dell by the Water of Leith

for Shadow Shot Sunday

Autumnal colour in Colinton Dell

It was a beautiful mild, sunny morning for this week's walk round Colinton Dell, by the Water of Leith.

Autumn has definitely arrived

the beeches are in full beautiful colour 

and the river is starting to fill with leaves that glow under the rapidly flowing water

There were lots of insects about, this ivy bush in Spylaw Park was a mass of common wasps and Eristalis pertinax (a species of hoverfly) this individual of which was quite happy to be caught on film. 

I spent several minutes sitting on a bench by the riverbank watching a dipper, that was too far away to photograph. It was hunting for insects in the water and jumping from rock to rock. I also saw a family of goldcrests (the smallest UK bird) junping around in the trees. 

I also took time to catch up with the larch tree I'm studying for Tree Following. It hasn't really changed very much recently, though the wild flower meadow behind it is totally bare now, after having been cut back by volunteers working with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. Hopefully it will bloom beautifully next year! 

For Nature Notes

and I Heart Macro

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Autumnal colour in Colinton Dell

The beeches in Colinton Dell are beautiful at the moment

So are the hornbeams,

 their chandelier fruits looks particularly wonderful just now

the cones on the larch I've been studying for Tree Following look like fully mature cones now

while the wildflower meadow behind the larch looks as though it has been mown to promote the growth of the more delicate flowers next spring

for Nature Notes.

Spiders on Arthurs Seat

Lovely weather today, sunny and warm - perfect for enjoying a wander round Arthur's Seat.

Also perfect weather for spiders. Here's a flower spider of some sort, waiting on the yarrow flowers to catch a small beetle or fly.

And here is a golden orb spider hunting a fly, the photo isn't properly in focus, but the spider still looks impressive.

and here is the spider, in slightly better focus after she'd caught and eaten the fly

speckled wood butterfly

dancing among the falling leaves - speckled wood butterfly

Autumn

 Autumn is definitely here! The rosebay willow herb is beautiful in its reddening foliage and draped in spiders webs too, though the webs didn't come out in the photo you can see the spider under a leaf on the right hand side of the stem...

 raindrops on elderberries

and toadstools, anyone recognise which species this is?

Garden Spider, Araneus diadematus

Garden spider enjoying a snack.

Wader Watch and other sightings

Birdwatching magazine was promoting waderwatch for today, the idea being to go to your local wetland or coastal area to watch waders (this being their time of migration and the best time of year to see passage migrants) and to report back. The event officially took place between 7-10am but I hadn't realised this until well past 8am so I did my waderwatch at Musselburgh between 9 and 11.30. The tide was quite far out, which isn't idea for seeing waders but I actually saw good numbers.

The most spectacular site was seeing hundreds of oystercatchers floying overhead as the tide started to come in and chased them from the shore to the Lagoons. On the Lagoons there were also about 100 curlews, a few bar tailed godwits, two snipe, at least 8 ruff, a small number of dunlin and a few redshanks. Other than waders the birds on the Lagoons included several gadwall, three shelduck, two grey herons, a few teal, two or three pied wagtails and the occasional swallow flying over. There were good numbers of eiders and velvet scoters on the river Forth.

I was amused to see this black headed gull (winter plumage) and mallard. The gullwas following the mallard and catching small items of prey that were stirred up by the mallard. Nearby another gull was doing exactly the same thing. I've seen gulls doing the same with curlews too. it's an easy way to get a meal I imagine!

It wasn't just about birds today either, I was pleased to be able to capture this pretty but slightly frayed moth (I think it's a lunar yellow underwing, but feel free to correnct me if I'm wrong).

I was also very happy to get a photo of these two ladybirds, the red one is a seven spot ladybird and the yellow one is a 14-spot

Water of Leith

Today we walked the stretch of the Water of Leith downstream from the Visitor Centre to Roseburn.

There were plenty of hoverflies around, like these two on a dandelion flower

and several trees had galls growing on them (galls are the plant's reaction when wasps lay eggs in the plant), like these on an oak tree

and these on a willow tree

I was delighted to find this group of cuckoo pints in berry

and I'll need to remember to go back in spring time to photograph them in their arum stage. There are lots of individual cuckoo pints in Colinton Dell (the area of the Water of Leith that I help to look after in my voluntary work) but I never see them as arums. Hopefully this group will be easier to find!

I was also pleased to find this clump of nettles, clearly showing the difference between the stinging nettles (on the left, with the greenish flowers) and the white dead nettles (on the right). Their leaves are superficially similar but they're not related plants and the whilte dead nettle doesn't sting!

We also walked round Saughton Park, but I'll blog about that separately tomorrow - it looks like Saughton Park has an exciting future ahead!

Liking lichens and watching birds

Lichens are fascinating! This xanthoria parietina is growing on the sea wall at Musselburgh.

The velvet scoters are back for the season on the water, such wonderful ducks with their fabulously weird faces. Swimming alongside them were two red necked grebes. I was also delighted to notice on the Musselburgh Boating Pond that there's now a family of little grebes, with five youngsters! The adults are just themselves small bundles of fluff, so you can imagine how cute the youngsters are! Then on the lagoons, along with several other birds, I was very happy to see several ruffs are still around. I'm beginning to think they may be here for the winter season, as they used to be many years ago.

**
Meanwhile, I've added a photo of canal boats on the Union Canal to the downloadable photos section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop.

Tree Following End of Summer

The larch tree is still green and the new cones still look young

the elder bush that grows just under the larch is now in fruit, though the berries aren't ripe yet

the sycamore tree near the larch has got tar spot

 Tar spot is an unsightly fungus, but doesn't seem to affect the health of the tree. OPAL are asking people to take part in their tar spot survey.

On the other side of the river the hornbeam trees are coming into their most beautiful time of year, their chandeliers are starting to turn yellow

Meanwhile, I've added another photo to the downloadable photo section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop.

Eiders in Eclipse

At this time of year, the distinctive eider duck becomes slightly less instantly recognisable, with the males in eclipse plumage. Not all males look alike in eclipse either, and there are a variety of black and white plumages to be seen at this time of the year in among the plain brown females. I took this photo of two male eiders earlier today at Musselburgh. If you click on the photo below you'll get a bigger view, and you'll see the face shape is still very distinctive, even if the plumage is currently confusing (if you don't know what a male eider looks like in breeding plumage, you can find out on the RSPB website).

It was lovely and sunny today at Musselburgh and the Lagoons were full of birds. Lots of oystercatchers, several lapwings, several dunlin still in breeding plumage, about nine ruffs (none in breeding plumage!), seven sandwich terns and two secretive snipes, one of which boldly moved into the open to have a bath, which was a lovely sight!

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks which take you to other websites where you can find out more.

Tree Following

Almost the end of summer and this is how the larch looks

and behind it the wildflower meadow now looks like this

Meanwhile, still thinking about trees, I've made a tree themed keychain, that is now in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop.