Its been a strange season for me with a great deal lost after a major op which thank goodness finished in the afirmative rather than infirmary,eventually, but it did mean losing a couple of moths and even then the effects of getting older and the pre mentioned has taken its toll. I was blessed with some good butterfly sighting like Purple Emperor and Brown Hairstreak but have found the moth season not as good as last year,even after such a great summer. Many of the moths that turned up in volumes here have not arrived at my trap at all and the reason for that to this amateur is not fully understood. What is understood is if you build the houses that we are deserve and need to live a normal life then somewhere down the line there is less for the butterflies and moths of the world unless you replace it somewhere and with some habitats that is not going to happen. Within a mile that is happening here.
To conclude the last week has produced a couple of larval species and a new moth for the website. The larvae were Bright -line Brown-eye and Dot moth which I found when doing a bit of gardening clearance. The former larvae were found(2) just below the surface preparing to pupate for the winter and the other found beneath lush Scabious.
I love finding the early stages of butterflies and moths which is an open window into their private lives.
The new moth is a little 'fella' called a Rosy Rustic which makes you feel you should know her.
On a positive note things are warming up this week so a "rally could be on the cards', as they say.
My season is finishing the way it started with server disconnections which I have been thinking about these past couple of weeks and now have a mental picture of the problem which I would rather speak to my ISP tomorrow about rather than bore all on this blog.
I did think in was a volume problem at first but my partner has a website with the same website provider and only 20 pages and is suffering the same humiliating circumstances.
For obvious reasons I have also reduced my web pages by amalgamating the taxonomy on the species page which I all hear you say I should have done in the first place. At 1100 pages the website was too large for the species represented so you will see the changes on each species page. Most of the larval food plant slideshows have been implemented leaving "the blues" to do which is difficult when the server keeps dropping out.
All the best for now
Colin