Abington Naturewatch: July 2020

Sunday 26 July 2020

'Virtual' Fleam Dyke visit

Unfortunately, due to the current restrictions and social distancing, the ANW Project Team decided to cancel the trip to Fleam Dyke yesterday. However, that certainly does not mean that the butterflies aren't there!
Andy and Polly M, and David and Gaynor F have both been recently and can thoroughly recommend a visit. You can park along the small lane alongside the A11, then cross the footbridge then walk a short distance along Fleam Dyke (see instructions at the bottom of this post).

However, in the mean time, I thought it would be nice to show a 'virtual trip', and what you might expect to see there in terms of butterflies:

Looking back along Fleam Dyke from 'Bedford Gap' towards the A11 footbridge

A multitude of flowers along the south-facing bank

Brimstone

Red Admiral

Essex Skipper

Painted Lady

Meadow Brown

Gatekeeper

Chalkhill Blue

Peacock

Dark Green Fritillary

Small White

Skipper [DF]

Chalkhill Blue [DF]

Other butterfly species seen (but not photographed) included Green-veined White, Large White, Small Tortoiseshell, Small Skipper, White-letter Hairstreak and Marbled White.

Pyramidal Orchid

Knapweed - an interesting white form

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar

A pale White-tailed Bumblebee

How to get there - from the A11 heading north - turn off the A11 at the Fulbourn junction, and at the junction turn left then immediately right onto the small road alongside the A11. There is a small car parking bay just after the footbridge).

Saturday 25 July 2020

Grey Heron

Anne D-N had an unusual visitor to her pond this week - a Grey Heron. It spent a long time fishing, and finally caught its breakfast before flying off.

Silver-washed Fritillary butterfly - an unusual species for Abington

Ross and Anne D-N saw their first Silver-washed Fritillary in their garden last week (21st July). Whilst being a rather ragged specimen, Anne was able to identify it as a female, which visited their buddleia bushes and stayed for most of the afternoon.
Jennifer H commented that this was likely only the second report of this species in the Abingtons over the last 10 years, the previous one being in July 2018, in Jennifer's garden on the High Street.

Moths galore!

A week or two ago, Andy M had a go at trapping moths in his back garden. Using a mercury light trap (kindly lent to him by David F), Andy set up the trap around 10pm on two warm, calm evenings, (on 6th and 11th July), placing the trap in the middle of a white sheet on the lawn near the woodland edge, and left it to work its magic overnight. The white sheet allows those moths that are attracted to the light, but do not find their way into the trap, to be more easily seen. Early the next morning, Andy carefully looked inside the trap, where a good number of moths come to rest in shadowy crannies under old egg cartons, and photographed as many as he could, for identification later. Andy started by photographing the moths on the egg cartons in situ (just in case they decided to fly away), before moving them gently onto a leaf or piece of bark, where he photographed them again on a more natural background.

Moth trap on a white sheet, showing the egg cartons taken out of the trap the next morning, and a few boxes to temporarily hold the moths before photographing and releasing them.

Most of the rather splendid hawkmoths are relatively easy to identify, as are quite a few of the medium-sized moths. However, Andy also trapped a good number of very similar-looking smaller moths and micro-moths, that have thus far evaded identification! Please do let Andy know if you know what any of these 'unknown' moths are.

Andy found the following websites useful in identifying moths - although there are a surprisingly large number of moth species in the UK!
https://ukmoths.org.uk/. https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths