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Adventures, Bees, Moths, S4F Traineeship

A bit of everything (well, almost)

I know that every week I say, “Wow, what an amazing and full-on week I’ve had, and I’ve learnt so much!” It just seems to be the nature of this traineeship (and my spare time!) to just be jam-packed with cool wildlife stuff. Despite not being able to top the Short-Toed Eagle from last week, this week has seen a great variety of wildlife in a range of habitats.

It started off with a trip up to Lorton Meadows Nature Reserve, a gorgeous place on the edge of Weymouth. It’s full of interesting wildlife (including a nesting barn owl whose chicks you can watch on a webcam!), but the focus of this trip was the mysterious underwater world as the Chesil Beach Centre volunteers and I were there to do some pond dipping!

A damselfly nymph, Lorton Meadows

Coming up from underwater, I headed over to Fontmell Down Reserve in the north of Dorset for the big staff field trip of Dorset Wildlife Trust. Again, a variety of wildlife but I was particularly interested by the range of wildflowers there. Naturally we also saw some animals, including my favourites – some moths!

A Yellow Shell moth, Fontmell Down

It was great to be out on a new reserve to me, and with knowledgeable people. With so many conservation people in one place, there was always someone on hand to tell you what a species was – and why (i.e. it’s identification features).

A Bee Orchid, Fontmell Down

An excursion to Somerset saw a couple of the trainees learning about bumblebees and how land managers, particularly farmers, can help them – and other pollinators – out. The focus was on field margins, excellent spots for planting wildflowers. Our case study was the Frogmary Green Farm which has made the room for wildflowers, and it had worked as we saw plenty of bumblebees. One species of note was the Tree Bumblebee, and I believe the photo below shows a melanistic Tree Bumblee (i.e. it’s abdomen is black rather than the normal orange).

Melanistic Tree Bumblebee? Somerset

The big event of the week was the Little Tern Fundraising Evening at the Chesil Beach Centre where we were raising money for the Little Terns of Chesil Beach. As the second rarest breeding seabird in the UK, and the only colony of Little Terns in the southwest, this population definitely needs help. Although numbers have gradually increased, support is still needed as the eggs and chicks are so vulnerable to predators.

I still don’t have a decent photo of a Little Tern I’m afraid, so I’ve included a photo of Morgan Vaughan (the current Little Tern Officer) from the evening where he was getting excited about the eggs. You can follow Morgan on Twitter at @Morgan_Vaughan

Morgan talks about Little Tern eggs, Chesil Centre

The weekend began with a trip up to Barton Meadows Farm to learn about butterfly identification with the Dorset Branch of Butterfly Conservation. Although I knew a few species (e.g. Red Admiral / Peacock / Large Skipper), I wanted to know about the key identification features to look for when I see a butterfly. I can say that these are:

Family (e.g. Skippers or Blues)
Flight period
Habitat
Food plants
Behaviour
And last, but most obvious, patterning on wings

After a morning of theory, we put it into practice with a walk in the afternoon sun. We saw 16 butterfly species, as well as a number of moths (including Mother Shipton, Burnet Companion and Cinnabar), beetles and interesting wildflowers. A big thank you to Bill Shreeves and other members of the Dorset Branch for running the day – I know I learnt a lot and hope to get out there more often to get butterfly records!

Theory session. NB: the pinned butterflies are from an old collection donated to the Dorset Branch.

Marsh Fritillary butterfly, Barton Meadows Farm

A female Large Skipper butterfly, Barton Meadows Farm

The evening saw me out birdringing, or should I say birdwatching! With the target species of Cuckoo and Nightjar, we had set up mist nets on the heathland of the Lulworth Ranges. We referring to Steve Hales, Luke Philips and I. One of each of the target species flew into the net, but both promptly flew out again! Very frustrating, but at least I saw both of them – and I saw / heard a number of other birds including Woodlark, Meadow Pipit and Swallows.

I’m new to wildflowers, but thought maybe a Spotted Heath orchid, Lulworth Ranges.

Therein is the end of this week’s roundup, though I will admit to missing some things out – roadside verges surveying, World Oceans Day at the Chesil Beach Centre, my personal moth trapping. But to cover everything would be too much!

June 8, 2014/2,315 Comments/by mgshersby

Adventures, Moths, S4F Traineeship

Step by Step, Lep by Lep

The title is a little obscure perhaps, but it is reference to the constant learning process that I’m going through, particularly when it comes to the moths whose taxonomic group happens to be Lepidoptera (which also includes butterflies).

This week didn’t start off with moths though, it started off with another topic that I am trying to learn more about: marine species. Marc, the Chesil Beach Centre Officer, led a training session for the volunteers at the centre. We headed out along the shore of the Fleet in time for the low tide and had a good rummage around amongst the rocks and the seaweeds, and wow we found some interesting beasties.

Common (spiny) spider crab

Yup, that’s a crab. This species has neat way of camouflaging itself, it actually has seaweeds and sponges attached to its carapace (shell)! I don’t think that anyone can deny that it’s not effective … though then again, a keen-eyed volunteer did spot this individual.

Shore crab

Ah, now that’s a crab that we’re more used to seeing. A common species in rockpools, this is the shore crab, distinguishable by the five wavy bits on the front bit of its carapace (shell). Apparently.

Marc in action

In the photo above, Marc is holding up something that is very commonly found on our shores, known as a mermaid’s purse. These purses are super cool because they’re actually the eggcases of some species of sharks, rays and skates! So similar to how a bird’s chick develops within an egg, as do the sharks, rays and skates. I do believe that the one he is holding there belongs to a small-spotted catshark (also known as the lesser spotted dogfish).

That night saw my first moth trapping on Portland, although only for a few evening hours. Despite the limited time, I still caught a decent number. Just a couple of moths is a good amount for a beginner to be identifying. I did manage a few of them, but struggled with a couple – the Pug (a group that are notoriously difficult, though mine was an easier one) and the micro-moth (since I don’t have an ID book for micros, yet).

Moths trapped: x1 Early Thorn, x1 Early Grey, x1 Double-Striped Pug, x2 Light Brown Apple Moth (a micro).

Early Thorn Moth

Later in the week, I delved further into the moth nerdiness, when I attended a 2 ½ hour long ID workshop. It was far more interesting than it sounds, and I learnt so much. Hopefully some of it will actually remain in my head, but it should help with if I do catch any of the species we covered.

I think one of my favourites covered was the Waved Umber, just look at that patterning!

Waved Umber

Another example one that was intriguing was the Satellite moth, with its rich red-brown colouration and spots. In the ID book, the three spots are either all white or all red-orange. However I noticed that the example we were looking at had two white spots and one red-orange. Yet another mystery in the world of moths.

Satellite Moth

Further Lepidoptera (moths/butterflies) fun occurred on Sunday when I travelled across to Southampton for the International Butterfly Symposium. This conference was actually three days long, but unfortunately could only afford Sunday’s half day session. Money may not make someone happy usually, but it could definitely make me more learned and educated. In my world this equates to greater happiness as it means books, symposia and training courses.

Anyway, back to the symposia. There’s some really interesting research being done, plenty of field-based conservation and laboratory observations. One that definitely caught my attention was the work of a Canadian researcher, Raynald H. Lemelin, who is studying human perceptions of insects. I was so engrossed that I even asked a question (albeit with a shaky voice as I realised that almost everyone was looking at me)!

A good example of an insect that people often have opinions on! However, this isn’t actually a bee or wasp, it’s a hoverfly! ID by Sean Foote.

With my role in community engagement (and previous experience with the Field Studies Council), I view at least part of my job as (1) increasing awareness of different creatures and (2) improving peoples’ perceptions of animals that they might otherwise be indifferent to or even dislike.

The best bit of this is that the animals involved are pretty damn amazing, even the simplest or most common is just splendid. The ecology of worms, the behaviour of moths, or the complexity of bird anatomy … each of these is an example of how remarkable nature can be, without us even noticing much of the time!

Even in this blog post, I’ve only touched on a couple of species but each one has a fascinating life cycle, anatomy and behaviour. What do you think?

If you’re very interested in the moths that I’ve been seeing, I have made a Dorset Moths List page of all the moths I’ve encountered since I moved to Dorset.

April 6, 2014/2,315 Comments/by admin