Thanks to Phil Smith for sending me these great shots of White Satin Moth, taken at a colony in the dunes at AInsdale recently.
Lovely insects, I usually get a few in the moth trap at Dempsey Towers each year, but they look so much better in these pictures - cheers Phil.
Funny how the pupae of a snow white moth are jet black....
Bits and bobs about today - I had a Cuckoo in flight over the dunes at Birkdale and Common Buzzard there too, and singing Reed Warbler on the Green Beach, which also held Blue Tailed Damselfly and Four Spot Chaser.
Saw Phil down there, and he'd had a female Broad Bodied Chaser too - always good to know they're still about.
Gannets diving offshore at Ainsdale and a smallish wader roost between here and Weld Road, where Bee Orchid is now flowering.
Right, off to bed (but not before my weekly injection of Psychoville II), ready for an early dart to Hartlepool in the hope the White Throated Robin is still about _ last I heard, ladders had been deployed like a medieval siege to try and get views of the bird in a doctor's garden - sounds like old times, what a blast.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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Hi John, whilst walking along a road just inland of the prom at Crosby today I spotted a small dark lepidopterous insect on the pavement in the shade of a large tree. It resembled a Geometer moth with its wings held together vertically but when I picked it up I was very surprised to discover that it was a White Letter Hairstreak butterfly. The tree overhead was an Elm, the larval foodplant. The species is not normally on the wing until July and I've never found it locally before. Meanwhile the large Black Poplar in Kirkdale Cemetery containing the 6 nest Rookery which was spared by the woodman last year has been chopped down very recently!
Hi Maurice, I`m a Crosby resident and would be very interested in trying to see any White-letter Hairstreaks in the area. Could you be more specific as to the location of the Elm tree please?
cheers, Pete Kinsella