5th Scilly BLOXWORTH SNOUT!

Monday, 3rd October

A well marked BLOXWORTH SNOUT trapped in Martins garden, Holy Vale

   At 22.30 last night, I got a call from Martin telling me that there are moths swarming around his trap with 21 Silver Y on the wall! Half an hour later, in the thick fog, I arrived at Martins to find 3 Dark Swordgrass, 2 Scarce Borded Straw, 8 Rusty-dot Pearl, 1 each of White-speck and Small Mottled Willow and 18 Silver Y, all on the wall. There were also lots of common moths present and with in minutes of being there, a Convolvulus Hawkmoth smacked into the wall and stayed there all evening. I went netting on the edge of the garden and the only moth I caught was the 5th Scilly BLOXWORTH SNOUT! Back on the wall, moths were arriving all the time. Two species that we both had never seen before were, a very scarce migrant from Europe, Palpita vitrealis and from maybe North Africa, Old World Webworm! Just before 24.00, I left Martin with the moths and made my way home, if I could find it in the damn fog! The only other new species for me was the Satellite and Pink-barred Sallow, the latter species is pretty common around here.

TOTALS OF MOTHS TRAPPED OVERNIGHT

BLOXWORTH SNOUT    1
Old World Webworm    1
Palpita vitrealis    1
Mottled Willow    1
Dark Swardgrass   3
Scarce Borded Straw    3
Vestal    8
Rusty-dot Pearl    20+
Satellite    1
White-speck    3
Convolvulus Hawkmoth    1
Large-yellow Underwing    8
Common Wainscot    3
Black Rustic    10+
Straw-dot pearl    1
Common Marbled Carpet    1
Pink-barred Sallow   1

Palpita vitrealis. Mick also trapped 2 overnight in his garden, Longstones

Scarce Borded Straw

Satellite

Small Mottled Willow

Pink-barred Sallow was a new one for me

  It was clear when I looked from the control tower first thing this morning and found 5 BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER! Later in the morning, the third LESSER YELLOWLEGS of the year was discovered on Tresco Great Pool with the juvenile still present commuting with Porth Mellon and Higgo's project. However, just after 09.00, the fog had returned and that's how it stayed all day with a fresh SW. The only time I had was spent looking around the top of the Garrison. It wasn't at all that bad with 1 Garden, Reed and Willow Warbler, 2 Pied Flycatcher, 2 Chiffchaff and 1 Blackcap and a very showy Firecrest. There were also 10 Wheatear on the football pitch.

Firecrest showing very well on the Garrison

  When the airport shut, I met up with Tony to and have a look for the yanky plover that's been missing for a few days. When we arrived, we found Keith Vinicombe observing a flava wagtail which looked good for BLUE/GREY-HEADED WAGTAIL. with 30+White Wagtail. Six of us walked across the airfield and in the fog saw the juvenile AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER with the Golden Plover, only 4 juvenile BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER, the SHORT-TOED LARK and over 35 Wheatear. I met Chris Lewis on the airfield and he told me that he trapped overnight, 1 Gem, 2 Old World Webworm and 5 Palpita vitrealis at Rooky Hills, as well as a lot of other migrant moths. I've never seen a Gem before, so I went to have a look at it.

Yet another crap shot of the yanky plover in the fog

2 Convolvulus Hawkmoth at Rooky Hills

 At 18.30, I met my daughter Tean at the youth hub at Carn Thomas. With a lot of niosy kids, we started walking to Longstones to see, guess what? Moths! But there was something else there waiting for us and that's the reason why I joined them all. Cookies and hot chocolate! But I had to wait until 20.00! That's an hour and half! Could I wait that long? Anyway, it was almost dark when we got to Longstones and Mick or as Jim Johnson called him, Mickey the Moth, showed us a few common moths, including a Red Underwing. Then it was cookie time, so I thought. For the next twenty minutes Mick talked about how the moths are trapped. Fascinating, but twenty minutes on how to trap moths. I could of eaten 20 cookies in that time! Then it was cookie time, after they showed us how to use a bat detector. Twenty minutes on moth traps and now firthteen minutes on bat bloody detectors. It's a squre thing and you switch it on and point it to the sky. If your lucky, you might hear a fart! That's how Julie Mawer described the sound of Pipistrelle Bats when you hear them on the detector. It sounded more like a dolphin to me, when I heard the bats on the detector. My mind was on something else and at 20.02, two minutes later than they said, I got my cookie at last! And how many did I get? ONE! After waiting so long, I got one! It was a good job that the hot chocolate tasted good or else I would of complained. Not about getting one cookie, but that it was two minutes late in getting the one cookie. After eating my one cookie, which took me 2 seconds to get down my neck, Tom told us all about the solar system, which was very fascinating. We walked back to Carn Thomas and listened out for Pipistrelle Bats. Jim made me laugh and I had a great time with the kids and Jacklyn, Becky and Julie. Thanks to Mickey the Moth, Tom and Sonia. The cookies were so big that I could'nt get them passed my mouth and it was all free!!

Making our way to Longstones for cookies and moths

Sonia showing us something really special and no it was not a cookie..

but a Deaths-head Hawkmoth

Tom explaining about cookies, I mean milkyways. Here he really rubbed it in by showing us how big his cookie was. His was out of this world! Mine was the size of a 2p! I was not bloody  impessed

A great track from the album 'Freedom'