Who am I?

An individual, of no great importance, who is unable to see the natural world as a place for competition. I catch fish, watch birds, derive immense pleasure from simply looking at butterflies, moths, bumble-bees, etc - without the need for rules! I am Dylan and this is my blog - if my opinions offend? Don't bother logging on again - simple!

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Saturday 8 August 2015

Derek's right

Calm down you twat! Not often I find myself in total agreement with Mr Faulkner, but his comment on my rant, of yesterday, is spot on. So I'll end this here! It's off my chest and I've said what I needed to say.
Marbled Green - a regular garden visitor
The Ladybird Halyzia 16-guttata - a garden first (Also found inside the moth trap this morning)
I ran the moth trap last night, the first time this week, and had a couple of nice surprises when I inspected the contents this morning. Not to be outdone by Banstead, Dumpton also produced the first Tree-lichen Beauty of 2015 - bang on cue. However, from a Thanet perspective, the moth of the night was a beautiful Garden Tiger, my first here since August 2009. Plenty of Dark Sword-grass, Silver Y and two Rush Veneer being the only migrant types, not a single Diamond Back?

The first Tree-lichen Beauty of 2015. Nowhere near as well marked as the
specimen that Steve took in his Surrey garden - but they're always welcome.
It was to get better; as I was examining my catch, a jumbled, gabbled sub-song was being uttered from the large Elder at the bottom of the garden. I grabbed my camera, changed the lens, and went to discover who was the culprit. I had my suspicions, which were quickly confirmed, as a Garden Warbler flitted about in the sun-dappled canopy. I managed to grab one, very poor, record image before it was off into the maize field beyond our hedge. A garden tick and I'm fairly confident of a few more if the maize remains un-harvested during the autumn migration period.

Can you tell what it is? I said it was a poor image!
The "Star of the show" - the first garden record of Garden Tiger since August 2009.
The decline in this species has been very dramatic and almost mirrors, in reverse, the upsurge
in Tree-lichen Beauty records.
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7 comments:

  1. Steve Gale8 August 2015 at 11:26

    Funny, isn't it Dyl... a Tree-lichen Beauty gets barely a glance in my garden, but nowadays a Garden Tiger would!

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  2. Dylan Wrathall8 August 2015 at 14:11

    Steve - it's crazy how quickly things change? As kids, growing up, in Hertfordshire, Tree Sparrow, Song Thrush, Stone Loach, Minnow, Bull-head and Crayfish, would be an expected part of our experience? To make comment upon the absence of a moth, which we all took as common during our youth, is surely a statement of the ability of insects to act as indicators of the state of the environment in which we live? Despite my current spate of political stuff - life is good - I'm hoping all is well with you and yours? - Dyl

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  3. Ronnie9 August 2015 at 12:21

    hi Dylan, great to see you here bud,and that your still passionate w/ fishing and nature, your blog makes some great reading ,you might just or not rember me from ascog and the butchers shop ,and when i came down to fish tring,long time ago.
    i still love getting out myself, but its got really hard of late as im sure you know( angling pressure + Arugulas lice problems)
    paul elboun popped in to see us last year, he,d come up cycling to Bute, anyway good seeing you and kindest regards ,Ronnie

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    Replies
    1. Dylan Wrathall9 August 2015 at 20:04

      Ronnie - fantastic to hear from you. I have to admit that I wouldn't recognise you today, but I do remember you, and your mate, perch fishing on Ascog in 1982. It was because of your dad's freezer that I still have that pike set-up on my study wall. They were very happy times. Glad that you're able to enjoy my blog - there's been an awful lot of water under the bridge since I last visited The Isle of Bute. I have loads of old photos of that first trip - I'll try to put a post together so that you might share those long lost memories. Hope you are keeping well? - Dylan

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  4. Stewart9 August 2015 at 20:46

    Hi Dyl, No Tree Lichen Beauty up here but still plenty of Garden Tigers. I'm up to 30 in the garden this year so far and I've only been trapping at weekends mostly...

    Cheers Stewart

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    Replies
    1. Dylan Wrathall9 August 2015 at 21:10

      Stewart - good to know that these spectacular creatures are not just a memory! Franny had spoken of this northward, thermocline, drift in recent conversation. Insects truly are the harbingers of ecological change - good or bad? I run my trap when, and if, I think there's any chance of a migrant or two. It's certainly not serious mothing - loving the blog - Dyl

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  5. Stewart10 August 2015 at 19:42

    Cheers Dyl, I wish we got more migrants here, but we are too far from the continental land mass really. Still you live in hope...

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