(Photo above of a – but not the – Red-Green Carpet. © Andy Harding)

In early March 2018 I ‘penned’ a short note to Magpie¹ about a moth, a Pale Brindled Beauty Phigalia pilosaria, which stayed in and around our porch from February 16^th to March 3^rd, sometimes exposed to inclement weather, but ignoring better days to fly off, until a definite thaw precipitated its departure.

This interesting (to me at least!) sequence of events has been paralleled in recent days by a different species, which stayed for 15 nights.  The specific identity of this moth may give a clue to the reason for apparent inactivity, even if conditions seemed conducive to night time flight.

This year’s moth was first seen on the morning of February 21^st: a Red-green Carpet Chloroclysta siterata, again adjacent to the outside porch light at around head height.  Despite its strikingly vibrant green colour, I didn’t photograph it, since I have plenty of photos of the species.  Had I known I was going to write this note, I would have done so!!

This individual, we can be sure, was a female.  Males of this species do not survive beyond autumn, but females hibernate and expect to mate with males emerging from mid-March onwards.  However this one was three weeks earlier than any I have encountered in Old Stratford in the last 12 years.  So early, in fact, that when I entered the record in the 2020/2021 winter Garden Moth Survey spreadsheet, it gave me a warning that it was outside the normal flight period and the record should be checked again before confirmation.

The moth seemed not to have moved at all from night 1 to night 2, but for the next 4 nights moved a few centimetres in different directions and ended up in different attitudes on the same area of brickwork.  A bright sunny afternoon then was presumed to force it inside the small porch, where it again moved nightly to different pieces of the brickwork and then to the glass on the front door.  Then on March 2^nd it moved to the solid (PVC) part of the front door and as far as I could tell it remained in precisely the same spot for 4 nights.  After a single night back on the brickwork inside the porch, it disappeared.  A check of the porch confirmed it had not simply succumbed in the porch.

The inside of the porch has a light on all night to accompany the exterior light to which it was first attracted.  Maximum daytime temperatures varied from 9C to 13C and night-time minima from 5C to 0C, with frosts on three nights.  During the period a very modest number of moths visited the two moth traps in the back garden (max of 4) so conditions were not entirely inimical to night-time moth flight.

So why didn’t she move any real distance.  Of course, I don’t know, but here is my sixpennyworth, and this may be rubbish.  Well, there are two lights very close to her position, so these might be so attractive as to ensure she did not go very far.  However moths frequently pitch up adjacent to the lights in and around the porch but usually stay for just one or two nights.  So I prefer the idea that this female moth instinctively ‘felt’ she had to move very little.  Flight takes up energy which can be better used for egg production, so she may have been pumping our pheromones waiting to attract males, which sadly this early in the year were not likely to have emerged, or so I assume.  As I complete this on March 12^th we are not quite at mid-month, but soon male Red-green Carpets will be emerging.  I like to think she can hang on somewhere for a few more days!

If anyone has more sensible ideas about what was going on here, please send those ideas in to webeditor@mknhs.org.uk.

Footnote: you may wonder why, although I did not photograph this moth when it first arrived, I didn’t do so when putting this little note together.  While a brilliant bright green on arrival, it had lost much of its lustre in latter days, as is the way with all green moths!

Andy Harding

¹ Andy’s earlier article about the Pale Brindled Beauty can be found in The Magpie April 2018

The 4 photos in this post were taken at RSPB Haweswater in Cumbria in the snowy conditions last week.

I thought people might enjoy trying to identify them. {If you click on a photo, you should be able to enlarge it.)

We can have a discussion at one of our zoom meetings in a few weeks’ time.

Tracks 1 (above) and 2 (below) were made by medium-sized creatures and we think we know who made them.

Track 2

Tracks 3 and 4 are smaller and although we have ideas we are not sure who left them in the snow.

Track 3

Track 4

Julie Lane
15 April 2021

(All photos © Jenny Mercer)

I have loved having my allotment over the past 10 years or so since I retired at 60, and during lockdown it’s been my space for respite and recovery.  It’s a place for me to get away from the dreariness and despondency of lockdown, long days with long patches of thinking “how can I fill my time?”. Actually I’ve always used my allotment to boost my mood; the only thing that changed during lockdown was that I decided not to plant up my greenhouse in 2020, just in case we were required to abandon visiting our plots (by government edict).

Also in my retirement I have always used my plot for ongoing exercise, in preference to housework, and in addition it has the advantage of being more productive! It’s also an opportunity to be sociable and to be as creative as I can to help wildflowers and wild animals. For me that includes wildlife-friendly veg and flower growing – I mix them together.

When I visit my allotment I generally take a book or magazine with me and a flask of tea. If I need to go shopping in Stony I often buy a newspaper and walk home to my house, by a slightly longer route … visiting my allotment on the way, pausing to read the paper whilst I am there. So as you can see, I’ve used my plot for recreation for a long time before the Coronavirus pandemic.

Usually I have a designated allotment bag by my front door with stuff to take to the plot on my next visit, e.g. vegetable waste for the compost bin, seedlings or seeds and sometimes a tool or two that’s usually kept at home. I frequently push a full wheelbarrow to and fro with potting compost, seedtrays and pots!

I operate a ‘no chemicals’ plot and have developed my own ‘no dig’ allotment project using green manure (especially phacelia) all the year round, and generally after clearing a crop. It stops the weeds and the insects love it. Some would say that the way I treat self-sown Swiss chard and Lambs lettuce are just like a green manure … but hey! they are deliciously edible and free too.

I always have a ‘fallow area’ for wildlife around raspberry canes and/or my strawberry bed with its mulch of straw from last year. I also generally leave just the last few of last year’s un-harvested parsnips and onions which have lovely flower heads and enhance insect life in spring.

Couch grass is a nuisance but I treat it as my rotation task each year; there is always a newly established area that it has invaded. I might put down cardboard to suppress it a bit and then I do have to dig or find a friend to help, as my back can’t stand the strain.

I usually put early potatoes in the former couch grass/newly dug over areas. Then I choose an area for legumes and plant climbing French beans, a few runners and token peas (usually sugar snap, as my grandsons love them for eating on plot). I try sowing roots – just a few carrots and parsnips, plus a few salad crops and most years I grow maize/sweet corn and buy in tomato plants and aubergines if I’m using the greenhouse.  In mid-summer I search for brassicas and plant-out purple sprouting broccoli and most years I plant broad beans in the autumn for an early spring crop.

Flowers that I grow on the allotment to attract in the pollinators are self-sown chamomile and feverfew, borage (which grows like the plague but is wonderful for insects), sweet peas, dahlias, gladioli, verbena bonariensis, California poppy and nasturtiums. Oh and cardoons, a giant thistle-like plant that I grow in a dust bin!

I aim to dead head the ‘weed’ flowers before they set seed to keep my neighbours happy. I use hedge clippers and sometimes a high cut with my strimmer to do this but I am very careful if I use the strimmer and often use a rake to clear a bit first to give any small mammals due warning.

Last summer Andy Harding used pheromone traps in amongst the fruit bushes to lure in male clearwings with some good success (see previous article on this website). He says he will be back next year to hunt for more moths in the area of our old apple trees.

I often come across toads when I am working on the allotment and a young hedgehog was found on the site last year. Overhead we often see red kites and buzzards riding the thermals and we had a sighting of two ring-necked parakeets flying across the allotments this January.

During the first lockdown I donated quite a few plants to the Freebies table, near the Orchard. As my plot is so close to the table I often get first pick when other plot holders come over to donate and often they have a socially-distanced chat with me.

So my allotment helps me to keep positive at this difficult time, provides me with physical exercise, lovely organic food, company and the joy of knowing that it benefits wildlife as well.

Jenny Mercer

(Photo: Duke of Burgundy at Blue Lagoon Local Nature Reserve © Martin Kincaid)

The Duke of Burgundy Hamearis Lucina is the only European member of a large family of butterflies known as metalmarks – the Riodininae. In South America, these butterflies can be found in great diversity and numbers and species typically have iridescent, metallic colouring or patches on their upper wings. By contrast, the Duke of Burgundy is a rather modest insect with its chequered brown and black wings.

In England, this is an insect of sheltered, sunny hillsides and woodland clearings with abundant primrose or cowslip, which are its two larval foodplants. It has suffered a serious decline in Britain and is now considered a very rare species thinly distributed across southern England. However, a strong population is present at Totternhoe Knolls and Totternhoe Quarry and there are several populations in the Chiltern Hills. The species was lost at BBOWT’s Dancersend reserve but a re-introduction project, led by Mick Jones, is underway.

In early Summer 2018, a local naturalist told me that he had seen several Dukes (the popular shorthand) at Blue Lagoon LNR. Although I know Kevin to be knowledgeable about butterflies, I was sceptical at first and failed to find any when I visited Blue Lagoon in good weather. I did find the Latticed Heath moth, which is quite similar in appearance from a distance. I didn’t forget though and was delighted to find 3 Duke of Burgundy here on 26^th May 2019 (rather late in their short flight season). One of these was clearly a male, typically aggressive towards any other passing butterflies and insects. They are pugnacious little creatures and will defend their favourite perch from anything that flies past. I was able to photograph both male and female Duke of Burgundy on this visit. The flight season in 2020 coincided with the first national Covid lockdown and although the weather was good throughout April I did not visit. Eventually, I did get to Blue Lagoon on 21^st May. I did wonder if I might be too late given the high temperatures last spring, but fortunately I was able to locate two butterflies quite quickly. The area favoured by the Dukes seems to be the scrubby grassland to the south-east of the main pit.

Sadly, much of the habitat at Blue Lagoon has suffered in recent years from a lack of management. Several plant species have declined or been lost and with them some of the butterflies for which the site was known. The Green Hairstreak is still present but hard to find, the Small Blue much less frequent than in the past and the Grizzled Skipper has possibly disappeared. The discovery of the rare Duke of Burgundy is at least some compensation for these declines but it is crucial that management of the scrub resumes in the near future if one of Milton Keynes’ best spots for Lepidtoptera is to recover.

There are no records for Duke of Burgundy for Milton Keynes before 2018. It is possible that the species found its way here naturally from Totterhoe but we can’t rule out an unlicensed release.

Martin Kincaid
February 1st 2021

(Photo above: Mistletoe in Central Milton Keynes © Mary Sarre)

My interest in this curious plant has been stimulated in the last couple of years, by coming across several occurrences locally, in Milton Keynes. This seemed to me quite odd, as I associate mistletoe with the apple orchards of the south-west, the orchards of Normandy, and poplar trees festooned with it in France (seen from the Autoroute).

So here is a little contribution to the botany of mistletoe, its distribution and association with certain birds, traditional beliefs and folklore, and some sightings here in MK.

Viscum album, to give it its Latin name, is a good indicator of its characteristics – it has the well-known white berries, which are viscous (sticky), in winter, giving rise to its traditional association with mid-winter festivities.  White-berried plants are unusual except in MK where the ‘snowberry’ (symphoricarpus) is used massively in grid-road plantings. Whether the snowberries are consumed by birds I don’t know, but the flowers do attract pollinating insects. Mistletoe is dioecious, i.e. having male and female parts on different plants. The leaves and stems are light green, typically branched at each node, producing a new ‘fork’ each year.

Viscum album by Stella Ross-Craig, 1969 (see references below)

Mistletoe is semi-parasitic on a range of trees, but the main ones are Apple (Malus), Lime (Tilia), Pear (Pyrus), Hawthorn (Crataegus) and Poplar (Populus), occurring in orchards, hedgerows, parks and gardens. It is not generally found in dense woodland (Simon Harrap, 2013).

Mistletoe occurs chiefly in the south of England and Wales, in lowland areas. It is spreading from the old orchards of its Herefordshire heartland to different species of trees in parks and gardens in Hereford, Ledbury, Bridgnorth and Westbury-on-Trym (Mabey, Flora Britannica). South Bucks and Hampshire are also ‘hot spots’.

Dispersal

In medieval times mistletoe seemed ‘magical’ in its appearance high in the host trees, evergreen and of a curious growth habit, appearing to spontaneously sprout from the tree. For centuries, mistletoe retained its magical, folkloric associations (see Richard Mabey for a wide-ranging account), and today its medicinal properties are still under investigation.

It was Philip Miller, curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden, who discovered that mistletoe could be established by smearing the sticky seed onto a suitable branch.

However, it is famously resistant to propagation by human hands (“none of the seeds placed on 14 different apple species in Kew Gardens in 1996 ‘took’ but one grew on an adjacent Hawthorn”. (Dr Ken Thompson, Gardening Which?, December 2020).

For long it has been assumed that the Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorus) was the primary disperser of the berries, as it attempts to remove the mucilaginous outer coat of the berry, raking its beak along a branch of the tree, and leaving its droppings in the tree.

Mistle Thrush ‘guarding’ his patch (Photo courtesy of The Woodland Trust)

To quote Dr Ken Thompson again, it appears that the Blackcap may now be a more effective distributor of mistletoe. He notes that the mistle thrush swallows the berries whole, and ejects the seeds randomly in its droppings. The Blackcap however eats only the skin and pulp of the seeds, wiping the sticky seeds off their beaks onto a branch. Once the seed is attached to a suitable branch, it sends out a ‘root’, a ’haustorium’ which penetrates the xylem of its host. The seeds are photosynthetic, so they need to be in the light.

Blackcaps, formerly mostly a summer visitor, are now frequently spotted in UK in winter (MKNHS sightings, November 2020). According to an article by Helen MacDonald, in Vesper Flights, German Blackcaps that have started spending winters here rather than in Africa may be directly responsible for spreading mistletoe to new areas of the British Isles. Which brings us back to our local area.

Local distribution

My notes cannot claim to be exclusive, and I would welcome any sightings from members. The first time I saw any mistletoe was in Great Linford Manor Park, a couple of years ago, in the venerable old lime tree near the canal. There are two balls/orbs high in the tree, obviously more visible in winter time (the park is open all year round). Julian Lambley drew my attention to another occurrence – in Simpson village – several orbs in two old Lime trees.  This made me wonder if the canal and the Ouzel valley could be the ‘corridor’ for extending the range of the Blackcap or Mistle Thrush.

A last sighting, in Central Milton Keynes, possibly on a young lime tree gave me pause – perhaps the mistletoe was ‘injected’ on a limb before planting, or a human hand was involved?

Mary Sarre
January 2021

Sources
Dr Ken Thompson, Plant ecologist, (Gardening Which?, Dec 2020 / Jan 2021)
Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996)
Stella Ross-Craig, Drawings of British Plants, Vol XXVI (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1969)
Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights  (Jonathan Cape, 2020)
Simon Harrap, Harrap’s Wild Flowers (Bloomsbury, 2013)

Above: December Moth. All photos © Gordon Redford

During the 10 years that I have been recording moths at Linford Lake Nature Reserve (LLNR), I have usually not run traps in November and December because the effort in setting traps up on late afternoons, transportation on foot of 12V batteries, then checking traps daily early mornings during the wet and windy months of the year when fewer moths are around anyway was not really worth it.  The installation on site of the permanent moth trap running off the mains electricity in August 2019 though has changed the efforts in/returns out balance.  December 2019 records of 52 moths counted and 10 species recorded was a good start and had me thinking that perhaps I should have made more effort in the previous 8 years.  December 2020, with the trap running 30 of the 31 days, was a disappointment with just 14 moths and 5 species recorded and has had me thinking that maybe I was right in the first place.

The 5 were December Moth, Winter Moth, Pale Brindled Beauty, Mottled Umber and Dark Chestnut.  Interestingly, all were singletons except the December Moth for whom 10 were counted.  Last year, December Moth numbered just 6.  The weather was pretty dire in December with more water on the site than I have ever seen in the 25 years that I have been visiting the site.  The photographs below taken on Christmas Eve shows the boardwalk from the car park on to the field at the back of the visitor centre and the field behind the centre.

Boardwalk from car park on to field at back of Centre

Field at back of Centre

It will be interesting to see what effect this extensive flooding will have on moth numbers next year.

Summary Of The Moths Recorded At Linford Lakes Nature Reserve 2020

Moth traps were run at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve on almost all of the 366 nights of 2020.  The traps were the large box on legs with a 125W Mercury Vapour bulb powered by mains electricity, a Robinson trap with a 125W Mercury vapour Bulb powered by a generator and three Skinner type traps, 2 with 40W actinic tubes and one with 2 x 2W LED lights powered by batteries.  The large box on legs was used almost consistently, the Robinson for about half of the year and the Skinners occasionally.

The total number of moths counted in 2020 was 18,059 and is the highest number recorded there in the ten years that I have been keeping regular records.  387 species were recorded which is just 2 less than the highest number of species recorded which was in 2019 from a total moth count of 17, 935.

The 387 species recorded in 2020 comprised 133 micro moths and 254 macro moths.  33 species were new to the site so that the total number of species now recorded at LLNR is now 560.  Excluding Acentria ephemerella, a micro moth which swarms on warm nights and are often too numerous to count, the most common species recorded were Common Wainscot with 1,703 moths counted followed by Large Yellow Underwing with 927.

Common Wainscot

The Common Wainscot numbers were a great surprise.  Moth numbers are known to have peaks and troughs, good years and poor years, but this number, some 5 times more than the previous best year,  had me checking to make sure that I had not double- or treble-pressed a number when entering the records but no, there were no errors on my part.  188 recorded on 18^th August was the most in one night.  The caterpillars feed on grasses including Common Couch and Cock’s-foot which are abundant at LLNR.

Poplar Hawk-moths had their best year ever with 321 counted.  The previous best was 235 in 2017.  Elephant Hawk-moths too had their best year ever with 50 being counted between 23^rd May to 29^th July.

Poplar Hawk-moth

The Poplar Hawk-moth season in 2020 began on 3^rd May and the last was caught on 11^th September.  At LLNR over the ten years of recording, the species has consistently produced 2 generations of moths during the summer.

At the other end of the scale, species whose numbers had dropped significantly this year were July Highflier and Old Lady.

July Highflier

The July Highflier is one of three moths with the name highflier.  The others are the May Highflier and the Ruddy Highflier and, yes, they fly high around trees and bushes.  The July Highflier is very variable and often catches me out.  It is also quite skittish, taking off readily.  Caterpillars feed on sallows and willows amongst others so LLNR is well suited to their needs. 12 were recorded in 2020 whereas in the previous 6 years their numbers have been in the 30’s and 40’s.

Old Lady

The Old Lady was absent in 2020 having been present in the previous 6 years.  Her numbers have never been high, mostly in single figures.  The moth is known to come to sugar more readily than to light.  Sugaring is when a sweet concoction is prepared and painted on to tree trunks, wooden gates,  posts and was used in the past before light traps to attract moths.  I have sugared at LLNR in previous years but did not do so last year.

Of the 33 new moths recorded at LLNR in 2020, 20 were micro moths and 13 macro moths. There is  evidence that due to climate change some species are expanding their ranges and three of the macro moths could be among that group.  Dotted Fan-foot, Dark Crimson Underwing and Dewick’s Plusia form  the trio.

Dotted Fan-foot has been restricted to the wetlands of East Anglia, Essex and the Thames Estuary but 3 turned up, 2 on the 8^th July and another on the 17^th.

Dotted Fan-foot

The caterpillars feed on rushes and sedges and the habitat at LLNR is just right for this moth. My hopes are high that it might find a (6) foothold there.

The Dark Crimson Underwing is described in The Atlas of Britain and Ireland’s Larger Moths as “a resident and scarce immigrant confined to the New Forest and a few woods in Hampshire and south Wiltshire with signs of a recent increase in range”.  It appeared on 24th July and the photograph below, taken on the day, shows a rather worn and travelled specimen,

Dark Crimson Underwing

Its preferred habitat is large tracts of mature Oak woodland but nonetheless a good moth to have called in.

The third newcomer was Dewick’s Plusia.  I recorded 2 of these at home for the first time in September 2019.  The Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland lists the moth as an immigrant and possible recent colonist.

Dewick’s Plusia

It goes on to say the moth has been recorded in May and July-October and the flight season in mainland Europe, April-November.  My records for LLNR in 2020 are 26^th April and 29^th July and I have wondered whether the earlier record may be evidence of breeding locally.  It will be interesting to see if and when they turn up in 2021.

2020 was a good year for moths at LLNR.  If anyone would like a list of the moths recorded last year or, indeed, all my records for LLNR or would like to join me in opening up the traps early morning in 2021 (Covid permitting) , please contact me on gordonredford@hotmail.com.

Gordon Redford
20 January 2021

On 11^th December whilst walking in Salcey Forest I saw a toadstool that was a bit different to others I had seen around the place. On closer inspection I realised that it was attracting large numbers of gnats (probably a type of fungus gnat). I took some photos and sent them to a very helpful lady at Bucks Fungus Group.

Penny Cullington very kindly had a go at identifying several fungi that I have photographed but she always makes it clear that she cannot identify a fungus from a photo and would need the actual specimen to make a definite identification. I am always rather loath to uproot anything as even a toadstool, which is only the fruiting body of the fungal mycelia underground, is still providing a habitat for something even if it’s only a tiny gnat!

Penny was interested in the darker spots around the rim of the cap and thought that it might be something rather rare, as there have been quite a few unusual fungi around this year, but she needed to know when the photo was taken, what trees were nearby, did it have gills or spores and if gills what colour they were, etc. After providing her with this information, she was still only guessing so on our next visit to Salcey I finally relented, uprooted it and took it home.

Once I had harvested the toadstool you could see the white spores actually tucked inside the gills of the cap (see below).  Interestingly, I also noticed two little parasitic wasps on the cap which I assume were parasites of the gnat larvae (?) – another link in the chain of woodland life.

On Penny’s advice I carried out the following two procedures.

Sporeprint: Cut off the cap from the stem at the top. Set the cap gills-down on a piece of dark paper and cover it with a pot / bowl/ whatever to keep air currents out and leave it overnight somewhere cool (not in the fridge!). Next day, check to see if you have a thick deposit (we’re guessing it’s going to be pale cream to white, hence putting it on dark paper otherwise you won’t be able to see it!)

Drying: Now cut the cap into quarters and, together with the stem, put it spread out a bit gills up in the airing cupboard over the top of the hot water tank is ideal. The air needs to circulate around it so it’s best put on wire mesh – something like a cake-cooling rack as long as it’s not going to fall through! Then forget about it till after Christmas!

I managed to get a lovely sporeprint. I then cut it all up and dried it as requested and sent it to Penny.

Disappointingly, on receiving the sporeprint with its white spores and the dried material Penny now thinks it is most likely to be Clitocybe geotropa, the very common Trooping Funnel, and not the Clitocybe alexandri (now Clitopaxillus alexandri) which has only been recorded a few times in the country. She still says that she might send it off for DNA sequencing which is the next step for a definite diagnosis but I doubt that will change anything.

To be honest, it was what I suspected all along so I wasn’t surprised but I did find the whole process fascinating, from seeing the gnats swarming round the toadstool, to the process of getting a sporeprint and the final drying of the toadstool in my partner’s airing cupboard!! I will definitely try the sporeprints again in the future but still baulk at harvesting too many toadstools as they look so fabulous nestled amongst the leaf litter where they should be.

With many thanks for the help and advice from Penny Cullington of the Bucks Fungus Group. She’s the Secretary of the group and also the county recorder for fungi, so if you’d like more information about the group and its activities visit their website at www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk/index.html.

Julie Lane
January 2021

(Photo above: Goosander at Wolverton Mill © Julian Lambley)

Autumn has been generally mild locally but with heavy rain and floods in October and December. However, this has not discouraged members of our Society from exploring the local countryside and enjoying and recording the local wildlife.

This is a summary of members` observations noted mainly on the Society`s website from September to December.

Insects:  Autumn is not normally associated with an abundance of insects, particularly bees, but in September Martin Kincaid observed the Ivy Bee feeding, appropriately, on ivy flowers in his garden at Oldbrook. This bee was only first recorded in the south of the country in 2001, and since then has spread further north. This encouraged members to search around this area and we had further reports from Olney and Stony Stratford. In October, Martin discovered a nest of the Ivy bee in the ground at Stonepit Field.

It is not uncommon to find 7-spot Ladybirds in groups in winter but a cluster of over 150 16-spot ladybirds was recorded at Wolverton Mill in December. Gordon Redford regularly provides monthly reports of the moths found at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve and even in November he still recorded a total of130 moths of 21 species.

Mammals:  Otters have been regularly observed in local lakes this autumn, particularly Willen Lake, Linford Lakes Nature Reserve and in the River Ouzel in the Ouzel Valley Park, During October there was a report of an otter beside the canal at New Bradwell, then heading towards the balancing lake at Blue Bridge. In the middle of November there was also a report of a dead otter beside Childs Way, which passes beside Willen South Lake. During September there was a mink observed by Willen North Lake and 10 Chinese Water Deer seen at Magna Park.

Earlier in the year the group that record different species of mammal at Linford Lakes NR installed some more mammal nest boxes {the hole at the back not at the front as with bird nest boxes}. During late September there was a suspected dormouse nest in one of the newly installed boxes. In October Martin Kincaid inspected the box only to record what was believed to be a dormouse escaping.

Reptiles:  There have been several reports of grassnake found this autumn and a young slow-worm was recorded in September at Linford Lakes NR. Whilst we are still waiting for the adder to be confirmed in the Milton Keynes boundaries, they were recorded last October in Stockwell Park.

Fungi:  Autumn is a great time of the year for recording fungi and the Bucks Fungus Group (BFG) undertook a species count project during this period. It was encouraging to learn that they recorded 500 species, 32 species new to the county and at least 2 new to the UK {see the BFG’s article on the Society`s website}.

Birds:  Autumn is also the time of the year for observing an abundance of bird species; and this was no exception. Several special birds such as goosander, short-eared owls, large white egrets {4 seen at once at Linford Lakes Reserve in November}, a cattle egret and even a pair of ring-necked parakeet have been observed in several areas during this time around Milton Keynes.

During September wood sandpiper, ruff and a redstart were recorded at Willen together with hawfinch and common crossbill at Tattenhoe. October attracted a ruddy duck at the Floodplain Forest NR, Old Wolverton; a mandarin duck and Egyptian goose at Linford Lakes NR, and a lesser spotted woodpecker and a yellow-browed warbler at Tattenhoe.

Highlights during November also included two ravens at Newport Pagnell, a common scoter at the Blackhorse Lake (next to the Linford Lakes reserve), and a great northern diver and an escapee Ross`s goose at Caldecotte Lake. The lesser spotted woodpecker was again recorded at Little Linford Wood. During this month Kenny Cramer, whilst bird ringing at Linford Lakes, recorded a long-eared owl. Records in December included a bittern at Linford Lakes, white-fronted geese and a possible Bewick’s swan at the Floodplain Forest reserve, and bearded tit at both Willen and Walton Lakes.

These records, collected mostly by members of the Society, are proof that during these present restrictions there is plenty of wildlife to enjoy. So, wrap up, exercise those legs, and enjoy the abundance of wildlife locally. Spring is not far away.

Tony Wood

Some 41 years ago my wife Hilary and I had the opportunity to plan our garden from scratch: the area was an arable field growing barley immediately before development took place in the south west quadrant of Stony Stratford. The soil is a heavy loam over clay and is slightly alkaline. The original plan was not strongly influenced by the needs of wildlife but fortuitously it did include flower- and fruit-producing shrubs and trees (cotoneaster, pyracanthus, crab apple, holly, bird cherry, apple and plum) as well as buddleia and sycamores on one boundary (the last courtesy of MK Development Corporation). For the rest, it was planned as a conventional lawn with small flower beds and vegetable plot. The shrubs and trees are mostly still extant and have proven to be a good investment for wildlife providing cover and attracting winter bird species such as resident and winter visiting thrushes, tits, sparrows, finches, an occasional redpoll, and for one memorable period in spring 2017 a small flock of Waxwings. In spring and early summer, the blossom is also good for insects of all sorts particularly bees and bumble bees: the trees are visited by other common woodland garden birds all year round.

Waxwings (Photo © John Clinch)

Gardens evolve over time and ivy has established itself as an important additional species for wildlife. Planned changes have seen the vegetable plot added to the lawn and the flower beds reduce in area as the shrubs and trees become dominant. It is the lawn itself which has taken my main garden attention over the past 20 years.

From lawn to mini ‘meadow’

Garden lawns grown from seed are usually made up of a limited range of the coarser grass species. My aim in converting to a meadow ecosystem was to increase the biodiversity of the area with more species of flowering plants, which in turn would attract more invertebrates (butterflies, moths, bees, beetles, grasshoppers, spiders, snails, slugs, and more), and again in turn more vertebrates (frogs, toads, and newts), and their predators (I do not have a pond so I must thank two of my neighbours for the semi-aquatic species). The main top predators to date have been birds, bats, Grass Snake (just once), and the occasional Hedgehog – a mini food chain.  ‘Meadow’ is not a precise term but mine now provides some succession of flowering plants alongside the grasses over the early spring to September period: one area is in semi shade under fruit trees and the other in full sun with a mown lawn path between them.

Grass Snake (Photo © Joe Clinch)

Which new plants to introduce and how?

It is an option to just let nature take its course and see what happens once you stop mowing and fertilising the lawn.  My first venture into creating a meadow area was driven by a wish to include Snakeshead Lily (Fritillaries) which were purchased in flower and put into the ground during April. Some ten plants in flower were dug into the lawn in semi shade and these have multiplied very successfully from their seed since then. I have had similar successes with planting flowering Cowslips and Primrose; less so with Ragged Robin and Meadow Cranesbill,  but I keep trying. In other cases. I have introduced wild seed either in the autumn or early spring having first scraped the lawn with a rake. The one ‘must have’ species is Yellow Rattle which will help to control the dominance of the existing grasses on which it is semi-parasitic.

Snakeshead Fritillaries (Photo © Joe Clinch)

I have been surprised by the variety of what appears on its own account. For example, Ox-eye Daisy, Sweet Violet, Germander Speedwell, Bulbous Buttercup, Self-Heal, Black Meddick, Cut-Leaved Cranesbill, Common Vetch, Marjoram, Knapweed and Wild Carrot have all established themselves without intervention. Others have appeared and, disappointingly so far, then disappeared including Bee Orchid, Pyramidal Orchid, Twayblade and Lady’s Bedstraw.

The succession with overlaps between them starts in early spring with Sweet Violet and Primrose; April, Snakeshead Fritillary; Cowslip in May; Ox Eye Daisy, Bulbous Buttercup, Yellow Rattle, Self-Heal and grasses through late May, June to early July; and finally, Wild Carrot and Knapweed through to September.

Pyramidal Orchid (Photo © Joe Clinch)

Management

Depending on the weather I usually mow over the meadow areas not later than early March on a high setting.  During the growing season I try to balance the need for ‘weeds’ to be controlled while at the same time avoiding trampling on the species I am trying to encourage! So, what is a ‘weed’ in a garden meadow?  Since the primary objective is biodiversity I consider as a weed any species that will dominate if not controlled. This includes some of the coarse grasses even with Yellow Rattle well established (e.g. Rye Grass and Cocksfoot), Ragwort, Common Cleavers, Dandelion, and tree seedlings. In fact the plant which has proved most difficult to control is a highly invasive garden geranium species!

I cut the meadow after the seeds have set. For early flowering plants like the fritillaries this may be mid-July but for others it will be from mid-August to early September. Before cutting I collect the seed of those plants which I want to spread elsewhere. As to cutting, my preferred method is with shears on hands and knees. This has a number of advantages: you can control the height at which you cut; there is less ‘collateral’ damage to wildlife in the meadow (e.g. resident frogs); and it also allows selective removal of the ‘weeds’ that I have been unable deal with during the growing period. I let the cut material dry off for further seed fall and then compost. I do a high cut mow over the area during September and October before winter sets in.

Find out more and give it a try

Julie Lane offered some very helpful generic advice on Gardening for Wildlife on the website as a follow up to the 17^th November Members’ evening on this topic. There is also much published material about gardening for wildlife and if you are interested in creating your own mini meadow you may want to follow one of these up (e.g. https://rspb.org.uk/get-involved/startawildlfowermeadow or just put ‘RSPB start a wildflower meadow’ in your search engine). It really can make a difference to your garden’s biodiversity and whilst it is not maintenance-free, it is for no better cause!

Joe Clinch
January 2021

Obviously not a swift (they will be somewhere over central African airspace) but a blue tit! We have a nestcam fitted which in the swift season we monitor constantly but have never had a sniff of a swift. However, this little fella comes at dusk and leaves at daybreak. Pay no attention to the timestamp on the picture, it isn’t right but we can’t figure how to change it. This pic was grabbed a couple of mornings ago at daybreak, just before it flew.

Sue Hetherington

Above: Angle Shades (All photos © Gordon Redford)

It is only in the past 2 years that I have continued recording moths regularly in November because there is much less moth activity in the winter months and the weather is often not that good for those that are on the wing.  130 moths of 21 species, were attracted to lights and there were 4 of the 30 evenings  when none were recorded.  I do have some records going back to 2014 though, so that at the beginning of November 2020, the November list for LLNR stood at 23 species.  By the end of November that number had increased by 4.  The additions were not new to the site and were a Diamond-back Moth, Rusty-dot Pearl, Turnip Moth and a Large Yellow Underwing.  The first 2 are micro-moths and immigrants.  The Turnip may also have been an immigrant and the Large Yellow Underwing likely to have been a resident making a rather late showing in November.

The Diamond-back moth is one of a group of seven moths from the Plutellidae family who rest with the wings held roof-like at a steep angle with the antennae pointing forward as in the photograph.  The moth has world-wide distribution and has even been recorded in numbers within the Arctic Circle.  The caterpillars feed on Cabbage and are a pest in some parts of the world.

Diamond-back Moth

The Rusty-dot Pearl has been recorded in Great Britain in every month of the year and migrates from Central and Southern Europe.  It has a wingspan of 18-22mm and is thought to raise 3 broods per year.  The caterpillars feed on a variety of plants including Burdocks and Mints.

Rusty-dot Pearl

Exactly half of the 130 moths counted were from 2 species, the December Moth with 45 appearances and the Feathered Thorn with 20.  Both of these species were featured in the report for October.  9 of the species recorded in October were also recorded in November.  These were December Moth, Feathered Thorn, Red-green Carpet, Angle Shades, Large Wainscot, Red-line Quaker, Yellow Line Quaker, Brick and Lesser Yellow Underwing.  Curiously, there were no Epirrita species recorded during the month.  These include the November Moth, the Pale November Moth and Autumnal Moth.

The Mottled and Scarce Umbers made their first appearances of the year. The Umbers are interesting because their females are flightless. The Latin name for the Mottled Umber is  Erannis defoliaria  which translates as a ‘Lovely to behold defoliator’.  The defoliator part is reference to the caterpillars that can be so numerous as to strip trees bare of foliage.  The males can be very variable.

Mottled Umber

The Scarce Umber is not really a scarce moth and there were more of them than Mottled Umbers in November at LLNR this year.  Like the Mottled Umber, the caterpillars feed on a wide variety of broadleaved trees and shrubs and overwinter as eggs.

Scarce Umber

The Satellite was recorded on 3 occasions. The 2 small dots, the satellites, either side of the small kidney mark, are diagnostic.  It overwinters as an adult becoming active in mild weather.  The caterpillars unusually are omnivorous, feeding on plants initially and later, when larger, preying on other moth larvae.

Satellite

The Angle Shades turned up for the second year in a row in November at LLNR.  The crinkle in the wing gives the moth a look of a withered leaf.  It has been recorded nationally in every month of the year but mainly April to early July and late July to November in 2 generations with the second bolstered by immigrants.

Angle Shades

Gordon Redford
4^th December 2020

Over the past few years we have developed the routine of walking the 4.6 mile circuit around Salcey Forest twice a week. This has been great for our fitness but has also meant that we get to see the forest in all its seasons.

Last winter was a bit devastating as they took 4000 tonnes of timber (a lot of it oak) out of the forest. The huge machines they use for this operation create so much damage and destruction and it was heart-breaking to witness.  However, nature is so good at recovering and the extra light allowed into the canopy seemed to have provided opportunities for quite a lot of insects, especially butterflies, to thrive this summer. There were good numbers of silver-washed fritillaries, skippers, whites and speckled woods around and I saw a clouded yellow down one of the rides at the same time as a veritable swarm of hornets!

But I thought I would share with you a few of the autumn highlights in picture format as follows:

• the trooping funnel toadstool which get its name as it tends to pop up in lines around the wood
• a very large pumpkin dumped in the wood to feed the wild creatures 🙂
• the red necklace beads of black bryony
• the stunning pink berries of spindle with their bright orange seeds
• a fallen oak leaf with its droplets of water
• and finally, a harbinger of the Spring and happier times to come – the first hazel catkins

Julie Lane
December 2020

Long-standing MKNHS member Bob Stott has just produced a book, ‘Lines and Rhymes, and Signs of the Times’. It’s an anthology of poems, anecdotes and short stories, including a brief history of Howe Park Wood, and even a story written by an old Oak Tree!

The book is available from Amazon in either Kindle E-book format or as a paperback. Bob’s author name is William Stott.

Bob is also producing a selection of extracts from the book to be sold in aid of Willen Hospice.

(Photos © Gordon Redford. Above: Gold-spot)

October, 2020 was a very poor month indeed for moths at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (LLNR) with just 136 moths of 28 species visiting the traps there.  In recent years, when similar traps have been in use, there have been on average 450 moths of 40 species for the October counts.  The wet and windy weather will have played a part not least because they caused the level in the lake to rise and make the electricity supply to one trap inoperative.  On another trap, the 125W Mercury vapour bulb blew presumably because of contact with rain as the bulb was covered.  It was a particularly windy night so rain may have been blown onto the bulb, causing it to blow.

These things notwithstanding, 4 of the 28 species recorded were new to the October moths list for LLNR which has been compiled over the past 8 years and which now stands at 84.  None though were new to the site.

The ‘new to the month’ moths were 2 micro moths and 2 macro moths although the micro moths were far from small in size.  The micros were Palpita vitrealis and the Boxworm Moth.  P.vitrealis featured in the previous report for September where there is a photograph and some information.  The Boxworm Moth has a forewing length of 18mm!

Boxworm Moth

The Boxworm moth is an interesting one because it is a native of East Asia and is thought to have been introduced to this country on imported Box plants which the caterpillars feed on.  The moth was first recorded in Kent in 2007 and is now increasing in frequency.  I have 8 records on my data base with 4 from my garden in Newport Pagnell (2018, 2019 and 2020), 1 from Westbury Farm (2020) and 3 from LLNR (all 2020).  It is a pest species on Box.

The Macro moths new to the October list were Gold Spot and December Moth and one was making a late appearance and the other an early one.  The Gold Spot is the one turning up later than usual and was recorded on 20^th October.  I do have another October record for this moth, in my garden in 2018 on 2^nd October.

Gold Spot

The Gold Spot is a moth of the wetlands and has 2 broods in the south of England with the moth on the wing late May-June and late July-September.  There are a scattering of records in the new Atlas of Britain and Ireland’s Larger Moths for October.  The caterpillars also feed on sedges, Yellow Iris, Branched Bur-reed and Water-plantain.  It will be interesting to see if these occasional October records continue.

The December Moth which was recorded on 29^th October.  All other records for this moth for me have been in November or December.

December Moth

The name December Moth was hinted at 300 years ago when Eleazar Albin, a painter engraver of moths and butterflies, wrote that it “came at the latter end of December”.   Perhaps then it only made appearances in December.  It is a chunky moth that does not feed in the winged state.  The caterpillars feed on a number of broadleaved trees including oak, birches, elms, hawthorns, blackthorns, poplars and sallows.  It overwinters as an egg.

Another moth that does not feed in the winged adult state and made some appearances in October is the Sprawler.

Sprawler

Although it does not feed as an adult, the pupa has a full-size proboscis case which remains empty during development.  The proboscis is used to sup nectar.  This indicates that the loss is possibly recent in evolutionary terms. It is things like this that make moths so intriguing for me.  The caterpillars feed on a number of broadleaved trees and the winter is spent as an egg.

Another immigrant that paid a visit to the trap in October was the Dark Sword-grass.  (I find I want to write Dark Sward-grass and not Dark Sword-grass).

Dark Sword-grass

As an immigrant, it has been recorded every month of the year but most numerous July-October.  Individuals that arrive in the Spring are thought to give rise to summer larvae with the resulting adults supplementing the autumn immigrants.  The caterpillars feed on the leaves and roots of low growing plants and have taken dandelion when reared in captivity.

The Red-green Carpet was recorded on 22^nd October and also on 12^th and 17^th April.  The April records will have been females who hibernate as adults through the winter.

Red-green Carpet

The Red-green Carpet is one of three British species (Brindled Ochre and Autumn Green Carpet are the others) in which mating takes place in the Autumn after which all the males die.  No sexual equality here.  The caterpillars feed on various broadleaved trees including Oak, Blackthorn, Cherries and birches.

Another often showing some green is the Green-brindled Crescent.  16 were recorded in the month.

Green-brindled Crescent

This species, unlike the Sprawler, does feed in the adult state and sometimes can be found on Ivy blossom and blackberries this time of year.  It overwinters as an egg laid singly on twigs of the food plants which include Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Crab Apple and Dog-rose.

My final moth for October is one resplendent in Autumn colour which is the Feathered Thorn.

Feathered Thorn

There were 8 records for the month.  The Thorns are a group of moths who owe the thorn part of their name to their caterpillars because they sport a sharp projection on their backs.  The spike improves the camouflage of the stick-like caterpillars allowing them to merge better into the undergrowth. The caterpillars feed on a range of broadleaved trees.  The males, who come more frequently to light than the females, have feathery antennae as in the photograph. The feathery antennae offer a wide surface area to trap the pheromones of the female.

Gordon Redford
5 November 2020

(Photos © Amy Jerome / The Parks Trust)

We had a super haul at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve today (4th November) with Kenny Cramer. Nets were positioned around the top half of the reserve, near the boundary walk entrance and “The Beast” which caught this beauty was raised near the barn owl boxes.

This is the first ever long-eared owl to be ringed at LLNR, and in fact Kenny’s first ever ring of an LEO. Martin Kincaid had mentioned that there used to be a healthy population at LLNR, but sightings have not been recorded for quite some time.

Amy Jerome
The Parks Trust

In late September, I wrote a piece about the discovery of the Ivy Bee Colletes hederae in our Oldbrook garden. I asked for fellow members to let me know if they had found this bee in their local patch and have since continued to look for it elsewhere in Milton Keynes.

Shortly after the article appeared on our website, Julie Lane contacted me to say that she too had found the ivy bee, at home in Olney. This is exciting news and suggests that this insect is already found widely across this area.

On 17^th October, Helen and I went for a walk along the canal at Old Wolverton. I have known the towpath walk since childhood and was aware of the great masses of ivy which grow along the embankment – always a good place to look for insects in the autumn. Sure enough, not more than 50 meters from the Iron Trunk, there were several specimens of C.hederae nectaring on the ivy right next to the path. They were in the company of honey bees and it was useful to be able to compare these two species, so similar in appearance at first glance.

Better still was to come – last Tuesday (20^th October) I stopped off at Stonepit Field in Great Linford in late morning. I wanted to see the scarlet wax caps that Martin Ferns had reported and was pleased to find plenty of these colourful fungi on the limestone scrape. As I crouched down to photograph one, I saw an ivy bee emerging from a small burrow. I looked closer and was pleased to see at least twenty or more ivy bees going in and out of their neat little burrows. One or two were killed by common wasps but I measured the length of the colony as around 31 meters. I was delighted to find a thriving colony of ivy bee – the first I have ever seen outside of Dorset.

Given a reasonably warm, sunny day, it should still be possible to see these bees between now and mid-November.

Martin Kincaid

(Photo © Martin Kincaid)

Autumn colours frequently feature in September moths as this Sallow above shows. (All photos © Gordon Redford)

Moths were recorded at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (LLNR) every evening during the month of September using 2 Robinson traps, each with a 125W Mercury Vapour bulb.  2,367 moths visited the traps which was slightly less than the best September there (2,429 in 2019).  81 species were recorded which is down on the previous 2 years (94 species in 2018, 86 species in 2019).  11 species were new to the September list compiled over the period 2011-present) and 4 species were new to the site.  The total number of species recorded in the month of September now stands at 163.

The 4 new species to the site were all to be found in the Field Guide to the Micro Moths of Great Britain and Ireland although, as mentioned in previous reports, being a micro moth does not necessarily mean being small as the photographs below showing 2 of the new species will testify.

Lyonetia clerkella, the Apple Leaf Miner, is a very smart moth indeed with a forewing length of 4.0mm-4.5mm.

Lyonetia clerkella

The food plants of the caterpillars, that live inside the upper and lower surfaces of leaves, includes Hawthorns, Birches, Pears, Plums, Cherries, Sallows and Blackthorn as well as Apple.  They may have 3 generations in a year and the adults of the autumn brood hibernate until Spring.

The second new species is Palpita vitrealis  and it has a forewing length of 13mm-15mm.  It is an immigrant from Southern Europe.

Palpita vitrealis

Egg-laying of Palpita vitrealis has been observed on Garden Privet but the moth is not known to have bred in the wild in this country.

2 species of moth recorded accounted for 41% of the monthly total and these were the 520 Square-spot Rustics and 466 Lunar Underwings.  There are various forms of Square-spot Rustic but most have a rather square kidney mark.

Square-spot rustic

The foodplants of the caterpillars are mostly grasses but they have been seen on Cleavers and Plantains.  They overwinter as larvae and the adults fly in late July to early October.

Lunar Underwings are so named because of a blurred central crescent moon marking on the pale underwing.

Lunar Underwing

Their caterpillars feed on grasses and overwinter as small larvae. The adults are on the wing from Late August to mid October.

Other species that fared well in September this year Light Emerald, Snout, Brimstone Moth and Bordered Beauty.

Light Emeralds have 2 generations in the south of England, late May to early August and early August to late October.  The second generation are often smaller than the first.  64 were counted in September, some 20 more than the previous high September number of 43 in 2019.

Light Emerald

Their caterpillars feed on a wide range trees and shrubs including Pedunculate Oak, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Birches, Sallows to name but a few.

Snouts are a group of 6 moths that have long palps that rather stick out like noses and thus the vernacular name.  87 were counted in September.

Snout

Snout has a very long up turned palps.  It too has 2 generations in a year, June to early August and late August to October.  The foodplant of the caterpillars is Common Nettle.

Brimstone Moth has 2 or 3 generations between April to October.  They often settle outside the trap on the underside of a leaf and show just a little of the wing so always worth a good search outside the trap before opening up.

Brimstone Moth

The Bordered Beauty also fared well this September with 7 counted.  The moth is never seen in large numbers at LLNR and often not at all.

Bordered Beauty

The colours of Bordered Beauty seem just right for Autumn although the moth is on the wing from July.   The foodplants of the caterpillars are Sallow, Grey Willow, Black Poplar and Hazel.

Gordon Redford

I recently attended a meeting at Newton Blossomville’s St Nicholas Church with two ladies from the Bats in Churches organisation. The church does not have a major problem with bats but there are some droppings and evidence of staining from urine on some of the brass plaques in the church. The main problem seems to be the bad PR that bats have and people in the village are rather negative towards them.

The Bats in Churches people have therefore offered to organise a post-Covid bat walk from the church and down to the river nearby, which we think would be well received by the locals and schoolchildren in particular. They are going to provide some bat boxes for us to put up in the churchyard as there are some nice mature trees (although apparently they don’t like yew trees as they don’t provide an easy flight way into the box). Also they have offered to source some hay rattle seed for the new wild flower patch in the church yard which has been left unmown this year – this should improve the meadow flowers and  attract the all-important insects for the bats to eat.

All in all a very positive meeting and hopefully a brighter future for the local bats!

The following link takes you to the Newton Blossomville entry on the Bats in Churches website www.batsinchurches.org.uk/projects/newton-blossomville-st-nicholas/

The Bats in Churches team are also running a couple of free online training workshops on the 13^th and 20^th October at 7pm. You can sign up to these at https://batsinchurches.org.uk/get-involved/events/

The first is for anyone looking to create public facing interpretation materials for their church (or any other organisations you may be involved with); examples include information boards, posters and leaflets. The second session will cover running and planning a successful event for your community including pricing, paperwork and practicalities

Julie Lane

Sue Hetherington recently posted an item about her involvement with the Bats in Churches project: https://mknhs.org.uk/bats-in-churches-sue-hetherington/. She writes now with more information, and a new video link about the project.

The Bats in Churches survey season is closed for this year but it will open up again next summer and I am keen to encourage Society members to survey a church or two themselves.  The project team has been very proactive during the Covid-19 blighted 2020 season and has kept in touch with lots of zoom sessions.  There was a particularly useful one on 11^th September of Bats in Churches’ first ever ‘virtual bat night’ from Heydon’s Holy Trinity Church in Cambridgeshire with talks from expert bat ecologist Phil Parker, Bats in Churches heritage advisor Rachel Arnold, and the clerk at Holy Trinity, Angela Bucksey.

The session was recorded, and can be accessed free (on YouTube) from Bats in Churches’ web page https://batsinchurches.org.uk/events/virtual-bat-nights/  – just scroll down to the box labelled “Watch it Here” and click on it.  The video is quite long at an hour and a quarter but you can fast forward over bits that you don’t find interesting.  The zoom covers a lot of ground:

• Some basics about bats
• An explanation of what the project is all about
• A look at the church itself which is Holy Trinity located in Heydon, Cambridgeshire
• Input from an ecologist (Phil Parker’s presentation begins 13 minutes in.)
• Input from the churchwarden

The video explains about the project really clearly and why it would be such a good thing to sign up.  To emphasise, volunteers don’t need to be experts or have any special equipment.  It’s quite easy to do.  The project needs lots of people to help as there are 16,000 churches in England to survey – including some little gems of churches in Milton Keynes which would be great to monitor.

The season won’t open again until June 2021 so everyone has a few months to think about it.

Sue Hetherington
September 2020

Many of us have been enjoying wildlife in our own gardens this year with the restrictions that have been imposed on us. Perhaps you have found something unusual or uncommon in your garden that you were not aware of until now. We have been blessed with fantastic, settled weather in spring at the height of the Covid lockdown and again recently in September. For me, it was a sighting on 22^nd September which has really caught my imagination.

We have a generous covering of ivy along our garden fence, and when it is in flower, as now, it attracts a wealth of bees, hoverflies, moths and other insects. Whilst having a tea break in the garden, once again in glorious autumn sunshine, a bee caught my eye as it busied itself on ivy flowers. A closer look allowed me to confirm it was the Ivy Bee (or Ivy Plasterer Bee) Colletes hederae a species which has colonised the UK in the past few years. A second one soon appeared which I netted, and chilled in the fridge to allow closer inspection! I quickly added my sightings to the database of BWARS (Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society).

C. hederae was first recorded in this country in 2001 in the Dorset village of Langton Matravers. Since then it has spread, initially along the coast but in the past 4-5 years it has colonised many inland counties, as far north as Merseyside. I first saw these attractive bees, in good numbers, at Durlston Country Park, Swanage in October 2016. For those of you who know Durlston, the clifftop ivy thickets beneath the Globe sculpture are the best place to look. It has just about the latest flight season of any British bee species, flying between September and early November. Superficially, this species and others in the genus Colletes do resemble the Honey Bee Apis mellifera and they are similar in size. However, a close look shows that it is brighter than a honey bee and the yellow and black bands are cleaner and more defined. Honey bees generally have darker bodies and the bands are somewhat indistinct. Fresh specimens of C. hederae show a bright orange, furry thorax. If you can distinguish this species from honey bee you can be fairly confident it is hederae as the other species in this genus are much smaller and generally confined to heathland and sandy habitats.

This mining bee can live in huge colonies of many tens of thousands and their mating behaviour can be quite alarming to behold, with many males mobbing unmated females in a frenzied attempt to mate with her. I have witnessed this in Dorset and it is quite a sight – and sound.

The specimens I found in our garden are the first I have seen in Milton Keynes and it is good to know that this species in now in our area. It may already be common. If you have flowering ivy in your garden or your local patch, do have a closer look at any honey bee sized insects buzzing around. They are not aggressive and are a welcome addition to any garden. Do let me know if you find it in our area.

Martin Kincaid

(Photo above: Black Hairstreak, LIttle Linford Wood 14th June, Julian Lambley)

The weather conditions this summer have been unpredictable, varying with spring being the sunniest for 100 years, the end of July and beginning of August presenting temperatures in excess of 30 degrees centigrade, and the month ending with strong winds from Storm Francis. But it did not deter our Society’s members recording highlights of the local wildlife.

Mammals – Paul Lund was fortunate in May to find a vixen fox and 2 cubs in his Bancroft garden, and a few days later photographed one inquisitive cub that had entered his house. In June John Prince created a box type platform with a trail camera installed and, with the help of two volunteers, this was lifted high into an oak tree in Little Linford Wood to see if it would attract any dormice. In June it was a success, with several images of a dormouse seeking the food provided. This is the first recording of a dormouse in the wood since 2015. During the May box survey beside the M1 Motorway near Gayhurst one dormouse was recorded and, to our surprise, a weasel inside a box with a nest of Great Tit chicks, sadly dead and partly eaten.

A species that tends to stay under the radar is the Harvest Mouse. Volunteers managed to find several old nests at Linford Lakes Reserve in 2018 -19. and this year Harvest Mice have been found on the nature reserve. Nests have also been found while clearing reeds at Stony Stratford Nature Reserve and Walton Lake this year, and it appears that the species remains widespread, if elusive, in Milton Keynes.

Other records of mammals include a Water Deer at Magna Park, a Roe Deer at Little Linford Wood and a possible sighting of a Polecat in Bury Field, Newport Pagnell (?)

Butterflies – In May a Duke of Burgundy was seen at Blue Lagoon for the third year running. How it arrived there remains a mystery. Harry Appleyard found a Black Hairstreak near the bottle dump, Tattenhoe – a new location for this very rare butterfly, so it is encouraging to hear of two other records at Little Linford Wood and the North Bucks Way. The hairstreaks did well this year with both Purple and White-letter Hairstreak being recorded locally. A Chalkhill Blue was seen at Stonepit Field in late July and later on the same day a Clouded Yellow {variety helice, a pale form of the female} was discovered.

Moths – If you have been following Gordon Redford’s monthly reports on the Society’s website you will discover information on a variety of species caught in his two light traps at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve. In one month nearly 6700 moths were recorded and 236 species identified. Other members reported their findings and included unusual species such as the Blackneck, Jersey Tiger, Tree-lichen Beauty, Clifden Nonpareil, and a Raspberry Clearwing at Olney, only the 2^nd or 3^rd sighting in Bucks.

One new species I had this year was the Lobster Moth which when released was caught in mid-flight by a House Sparrow – I felt very guilty!!

After several years of recording hoverflies in my garden, I have found a paucity of both species and numbers the past two years. Have you experienced the same?

Birds – It has been a very good year for breeding birds at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve. During lockdown, a nest of Teal was found on the bund. This species was last recorded as breeding in Bucks in 1989 {although it did breed regularly at the Linford Reserve in the 1970s/80s}. As if this wasn’t exciting enough, a pair of Great White Egrets also nested in the heronry this spring with at least one young fledged. Three adult birds had been present during the winter and courtship was observed in March. This makes Linford Reserve only the third known location for nesting Great White Egrets in the UK.

More recently, 2 juvenile Yellow Wagtails have been ringed on the bund and it is likely that this declining species has also bred. Cuckoos have had a fantastic year at the Linford Reserve with 11 birds ringed. Country-wide, over 100 calling cuckoos were recorded – an exceptional year for this species.

Over the local area the following birds were recorded. In June a Nightingale and a Goosander with 5 chicks were seen at Olney, and a pair of Peregrines reared three chicks at the MK Stadium. During July a female Mandarin Duck was recorded at Willen Lakes, a Redstart and 9 Crossbills seen at Tattenhoe, and in August a Black-tailed Godwit and Peregrine at the Forest Floodplain Reserve, and the month finished off with an Osprey seen and photographed at Linford Reserve.

Can I thank Martin Kincaid and Gordon Redford for their contribution to this article.

I’d also like to congratulate Harry Appleyard on his discovery of a Lesser Emperor dragonfly in Tattenhoe Park, a first sighting in Milton Keynes, although present in other areas of Bucks for several years.

Autumn is upon us soon so please get outside, binoculars and cameras at the ready to watch, record, but most of all, enjoy our local wildlife.

Tony Wood
9 Sept 2020

I’ve been working as a Bats in Churches volunteer, monitoring bat activity in 4 churches: – Gawcott, Hillesden, Tingewick and Wotton Underwood.  Bats in Churches exists in large part “to address issues that bats can cause in churches while continuing to protect their roosts.” See https://batsinchurches.org.uk/

I gave a short presentation about this by Zoom at the Members’ evening on 1^st September, and have since recorded a 15-minute version of this, which you can access through the following link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/AilVFluXePGZr9iN4UgNfN_t4pWjPVCIHuR65zZ6FQjPC0_sh8VM1pyCWDxF1ihL.1eC9hL4m5BM94TqB

You will need to enter the Passcode: j0?AW8Y?

It’s too late for anyone to get involved as a volunteer now (the project was HUGELY disrupted by Covid-19 as you’d expect plus this year’s surveys end on 31st August.  BUT the project continues in 2021 and 2022 – something to think about for next year.

Sue Hetherington
September 2020

What’s the most striking thing about trees in autumn? It is not that they shed their leaves. It’s the fact that the leaves on some trees change their colour before they fall. Why does this happen – the leaves have been green all spring and summer? Why don’t the green leaves just drop off without changing colour and why on some trees do the leaves turn red.

After reading recently published papers on the subject it became clear that, although it has been discussed for many years, it is still a source of debate. At least 10 hypotheses were reported in a paper published in 2009. Eventually I found that there are now two main evolutionary explanations – autumn colours could have evolved in plants to protect them against the physical damage induced by intense light at low temperatures (photoprotection hypothesis) or to avoid parasites by signalling the defensive commitment of the tree (coevolution hypothesis).

A leaf is the main photosynthetic organ of a tree.  Photosynthesis a process in which carbon dioxide from the air is combined with water in the presence of light to produce sugars and oxygen. The molecule that carries this out is called chlorophyll. It absorbs red and blue wavelengths of light and reflects green so that the leaf appears green to us. It is a complex molecule with a ring of nitrogen at its centre surrounding an atom of magnesium. Shorter days and lower temperatures trigger leaf fall but this is a multi-step controlled shutdown process. Instead of the green leaves just being discarded, the chlorophyll and proteins in the leaf are broken down and essential nutrients, such as nitrogen, re-absorbed and stored in the shoots and roots until spring. Plants generally re-absorb half their total leaf nitrogen.

As the chlorophyll breaks down, the leaf loses its green colour and other pigments can be seen. Carotenoids are yellow and orange and are already present. Anthocyanins, which give the leaf a red colour, are newly made. Carotenoids are needed to keep the cells going during the re-absorption stage so most trees have yellow leaves in autumn but 14% have red leaves. Why then do some trees go to the expense of making Anthocyanins before the leaves fall? This is where the 2 main hypotheses compete.

Anthocyanins protect the leaf from light damage during the period of re-absorption. This is the basis for the photoprotection hypothesis – it extends the leaf life during shut-down and enables it to send more nutrients back to the tree before the leaf drops. If this is true, trees with yellow leaves should drop their leaves earlier.

Another idea is that the red coloration may be a signal to parasites, such as aphids, that have a strong preference for green leaves, to not lay their eggs on red leaves in autumn. This avoids future damage and is the basis for the co-evolution hypothesis. Red colour may be correlated with the level of herbivore defence in the tree, and therefore plants investing more in defences show more autumn colours. If insects adapt to avoid red leaves in autumn, this will lead to a co-evolutionary process in which both preference for green in aphids and intensity (or duration) of red in trees increase.

I have no idea which theory is correct but when you go out this autumn look out for yellow leaves and red leaves, admire their beauty and think how complicated life can be!

Here are some trees to watch out for in Milton Keynes.

First, two species that go yellow in autumn

1: Norway Maple (photo Alan Birkett)

Photo 1 The Norway Maple Acer platanoides is native to Europe, from Scandinavia to the Caucasus. It was introduced to Britain in 1683 and is now commonly found in gardens, streets and parks. It is one of the first trees to look green in spring, when its green flowers open before the leaves. It has the 5-lobed leaf typical of the Maple family but differs from the Field Maple and Sycamore in that its lobes and teeth have finely pointed tips. It has a winged fruit like all maples but the wings hang down at an angle whereas on the Field Maple they are flat. This tree is at the south end of Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes

2: Aspen (photo Alan Birkett)

Photo 2 The Aspen Populus tremula is a Poplar that tolerates cold conditions. It is a smaller tree than most Poplars. It is a species that grows in cool regions across the whole of Europe and west Asia. (The American Aspen is a different species). It is more likely to be found in the north and west of Britain and is common in the Scottish Highlands. It is typically found in oak or birch woodland. It can spread by sending suckers up from its roots. Male and female flowers are on separate trees. Flowers are in the form of catkins. Aspens are quite common in Milton Keynes; these are on the east side of Furzton Lake.

Here are 2 trees with red leaves in autumn

3: Persian Ironwood (photo Alan Birkett)

Photo 3 The Persian Ironwood Parrotia persica is a small deciduous tree native to northern Iran. It was introduced to Britain in 1841. It is related to the Witch-Hazel. Its wood is extremely hard, hence the name ironwood. It has red flowers which appear before the leaves in late winter and the leaves turn bright red in autumn. There is a huge tree in the Cambridge Botanical Garden and a small tree on the east side of Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes.

4: Sweet Gum (photo Alan Birkett)

Photo 4 The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) is a deciduous tree native to south-eastern USA and the cloud-forest mountains of Mexico and Central America. It was introduced to Britain in 1681. It is an ornamental tree planted in many parks and gardens in warmer areas. It has red autumn foliage and unusual fruit, similar to that of the London Plane. In its native habitat the tree was grown commercially for its aromatic gum, originally known as ‘liquid amber’, hence its scientific name. This tree is in the Emerson Valley of Milton Keynes.

Other trees you may come across, that have red leaves in autumn, include the Sugar Maple, Red Maple and Red Oak from Eastern North America and the Japanese Maple variety ‘Osakazuki’ which is spectacular in autumn in the Cambridge Botanic Garden.

To find out more about trees and how to identify them go to my website: https://www.treeguideuk.co.uk/
and if you have any comments or observations about trees my e-mail is alan@treeguideuk.co.uk.

Alan Birkett
4 September 2020

Recording moths is never a lonely business.  This little feller in his red jacket (above) joins me most mornings and is the reason that I now have to net all the moths in the trap before he/she has them for breakfast.
(All photos: Gordon Redford)

What a strange month this has been for weather conditions and consequent moth turnout.  The catches, which are all released unharmed, began with around 250 or so each evening rising to 450 when the temperatures soared and then the wind and rain which sent numbers visiting the traps plummeting so that on the 30^th August just 27 moths dared to show their faces.  It was just our bad luck that we had arranged for 25^th to be the day for the Society to video the opening of some traps at the Reserve. (See separate news item: Emptying the moth traps at LLNR.)
I think 58 moths and 19 species was our haul for that evening. Nationally it was not too good either as 27^th-29^th August was designated this year’s National Moth Night.  All 3 nights were wet, cold and windy.

That said all the records for the month of August have been entered in the data base and the numbers show that 6,695 moths visited the traps and that is the best August total ever at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (LLNR).  This is almost 1,000 moths more than the previous high total for August which was in 2019.  The number of species recorded was 178 and curiously that number is 12 less than the 190 species that were recorded last year.  12 species were added to August list for LLNR of which 1 was new to the site.  The other 11 species had been recorded on site before.  The new one for the site was a micro moth named Golden Argent.

Golden Argent

There are 25 species in the Argent genus with the largest having a forewing of 6.5mm.  Most rest in a declining posture with head close to the surface and abdomen raised.  The caterpillars feed on Birches and Alders of which there are many at LLNR.

The macro/micro division among moths can be confusing because some micro moths are very large indeed and some macro moths are very tiny.  One such tiny macro is the Pinion-streaked Snout.

Pinion-streaked Snout

The forewing is between 9 and 11mm and 13 were recorded during August this year.  It has 2 generations in the south and this, the second generation, was good to see because only 1 was recorded in the first generation.  It overwinters as a caterpillar and remarkably, its food plant in the wild is unknown.

The most abundant moth in the month of August this year was the Common Wainscot with 1,394 appearances.

Common Wainscot

Michael McCarthy in his very readable The Moth Snowstorm describes how 60-70 years ago driving at night in summer sometimes was just like driving through a snowstorm because of the large numbers of moths.  The Common Wainscot would almost certainly have been a major constituent.  They have 2 overlapping generations in a year and their caterpillars are grass feeders.

There are around 40 species of wainscot moths arranged in 2 groups and their colours help to conceal them in their marshy habitats and, if I have done my sums right, 19 have been recorded at LLNR.  Webb’s Wainscot has been recorded every August in each of the past 10 years and the 145 counted this year is the best ever.

Webb’s Wainscot

The Twin-spotted Wainscot was recorded in August, 2016 for the first time and then not again till this year when 9 were recorded.

Twin-spotted Wainscot

The caterpillars feed on Common Reed and the moth overwinters in the egg state.  The adults do not feed.

August, 2020 was a good one for the Blood-vein with 29 being counted.  The previous highest number was 16.  The moth is well named.

Blood-vein

The Blood-vein enjoys 2 generations usually and the caterpillars feed on Docks, Orache, Sorrel and Knotgrass.

It was good on the 11^th August to record a Jersey Tiger.  This is the 3^rd year in a row that this moth has been recorded at LLNR.

Jersey Tiger

It has undergone/is undergoing a huge increase in range and has been seen regularly in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire in recent years.  The food plants of the caterpillars include Nettles, Plantains, Ground-ivy and Brambles and are abundant at LLNR so who knows.

My final August moth is the magnificent Clifden Nonpareil which made an appearance on the 24^th .  This is the third record for LLNR, the other 2 being last year.

Clifden Nonpareil

The Clifden part of the name is in recognition of the moth’s discovery at what is now Cliveden House by the Thames near Maidenhead in the 1740s.  It became extinct in the UK in 1964 but recolonised southern England from about 2007.  Evidence suggests that it is slowly spreading north from that coastal base.

Gordon Redford

Above: The purpose-built trap at LLNR (Photo: Gordon Redford)

The evening of Tuesday 25^th August was originally scheduled for a Society BBQ and Moth Night at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve. This was cancelled along with the rest of the summer walks due to Covid 19, but in turns out that it would have been cancelled anyway as 25^th August saw the arrival of heavy rain followed by strong gales as storm Francis swept through.

Gordon Redford nevertheless ran the two traps there as usual and as a better forecast was scheduled for 26^th, I joined Gordon and Ayla Webb in the early morning to video them emptying the traps and recording the night’s catch. Weather conditions meant this was not very large, but represents a selection of what is flying at this time of year at Linford Lakes. Any deficiencies in the videos are down to me!

The first trap is situated between a reedbed and the lake; the second is a fixed, purpose-built trap against the wall adjacent to the main building at the reserve.

The video of the emptying of the first trap is in two parts:

Video 1:  Emptying of first moth trap, Part 1

Video 2:  Emptying of first moth trap, Part 2

The video of the emptying of the second trap is here:

Video 3: Linford Lakes Moth Trapping

At the start of this third video, where we look at the contents of the fixed, purpose-built trap at LLNR, there is mention of the shed that Gordon would like – but somehow we never came back to explain …  This refers to the moth trapping arrangements of Mr Plusia (who gave his name to the moth called Dewick’s Plusia) in the 1950s on the Essex coast. He had a shed with a similar style moth trap built into the roof. Photos show him in the shed, with the shed’s walls covered in moths. He could examine them at leisure without any danger of them flying away, or any problems with wind and rain! Maybe one day, Gordon …

Linda Murphy

Yesterday my partner and I were sitting by Caldecotte Lake, when she pointed out a “huge caterpillar” on willow-herb a few feet away over tangled waterside vegetation.  With close-focused bins I quickly confirmed it as an Elephant hawkmoth, and was pleased she’d spotted it as she’d been wowed finding an adult in her garden a few years ago.  Though dark, it was lighter and more strikingly marked than the typical velvety black – sadly an exact match for tarmac – seen by most who encounter these larvae when roving pre-pupation.

I then launched into some “mansplaining”: eyespots, head, mandibles, horned tail – that sort of thing.  However, her responses – in particular her efforts to describe its markings – made little sense to me.  If there is a goddess of effective communication she was clearly struggling, but disagreement would only have spoiled the moment.  I wanted to share the pleasure – my sense that in some small corner all’s well with the world – which I have always had seeing a caterpillar peaceably munching its food-plant.  A Kingfisher shot past, a Heron settled in a dead tree.

Eventually:
She:  “What’s that dark thing a bit above it?  Is it a dead leaf or something?”
Me:   “What dark thing?  The only dark thing is the caterpillar.”
She:  “My caterpillar’s not dark at all”.

Her caterpillar was in fact about six inches lower, bright apple-green and equally large, though I’d entirely failed to see it (I plead intervening foliage and a slightly different sightline).  It was of course a second Elephant hawk.  Though the adult is pretty constant, the larvae have a wide spectrum of colour variation, and this was clearly “extreme green”—more like an Emperor or Privet hawk, in fact.

Yet it’s likely both larvae were from eggs laid by one female, and mated by a single male.  A genetic conundrum almost as interesting as how two people can spend twenty minutes thinking they are discussing the same object when they’re not.

Chris Coppock, 27 August 2020

[Photo of Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, Deilephilia Elpenor, by Julian Lambley, Old Wolverton Mill, 11 September 2016]

Above: Carrion Crow, Tattenhoe, April 2017 (All photos, images and recordings © Harry Appleyard)

Getting Started

One of my long-term missions in my local birding has been to record as many species as possible from within the Tattenhoe area in the south of Milton Keynes. While there are many places I could visit across the rest of the city to generate a much longer species list, I prefer to base mine on a lower-carbon approach, through what I see and or hear close to home. Currently, my list of species for Tattenhoe and the surrounding areas since 2008 sits at 128.

Having already listed the resident species, as well as frequent annual migrants, new additions come at a much slower pace now, but an increasingly talked-about area of birding that I’m hoping will help me, is ‘nocmig’, the recording of nocturnal bird migration. After some research with the aid of other birders on Twitter, I invested in the Tascam DR-05 last year. While I can’t say it has added anything new to the list yet, it has been well worth getting into, having recorded several species I’ve never previously observed from my garden before, some of which have been rare or only occasional on my walks in this corner of MK in the past.

Tascam DR-05 recorder and tripod

The recorder is placed into a bucket coated in bubble-wrap, to suppress background noise. The AA batteries for the recorder usually just about make it through a 6-7 hour recording, however they will run out of power much sooner on cold or windy nights. Its minimum operating temperature according to the product manual is 6 degrees Celsius, so ideally not one to leave out in the open in winter. WAV format is usually one of the better formats to choose for recording, as MP3 audio may not be quite as clear for distant sounds and more vulnerable to compression.

After I’ve finished the recording, I scan through the audio using Audacity. Amplifying the audio by around 20-24 decibels has been key in picking out the bird vocals, as unless they are perched close to the bucket or calling as they fly directly over the garden, not only are they harder to hear, but also harder to see in the spectrogram, where visual signatures of their vocalizations can be found among the other sounds of the night.

Once the audio is amplified, the next stage is scrolling through the spectrogram, which can be expanded and magnified to make finding the often-fleeting calls of nocturnal migrants much easier. Most vocals from passing birds on the audio are thin dots and streaks, though the louder they are and the more they are magnified, the more unique and recognisable they become. Sudden knocks or movements of objects nearby and typical urban sounds like car horns or distant alarms, may look like vocals on first inspection.

Below: Spectogram and recording of Little Ringed Plover, 15^th July 2020.
Photo taken Forest Floodplain NR, April 2015

The dawn chorus is often a mess of streaks and lines all over the spectrogram from typical garden visitors like the Wren, Robin and Crow, even more so earlier in the summer when warblers and other birds are in the mix. When the display starts to get crowded, it’s worth listening closely for early morning flyovers, or birds you might not usually see in your garden, like the Bullfinch.

Findings from 2019 to Present

Since I started the recordings, the Moorhen has been one of the more frequent night-time flyovers, interestingly regarded as a common nocturnal migrant across the UK but it’s hard to be sure whether I have caught true migrants travelling long distances or resident birds disturbed from their territories nearby, perhaps flushed from their roosts by foxes or cats in the early hours of the morning.

Above: Moorhen, Tattenhoe Valley Park, March 2016
Below: Recording of Moorhen, 11^th April 2020

Having seen them only once in the garden before, Tawny Owls have also been a pleasant surprise, occasionally perched and calling nearby. From the night of 23^rd October and into the morning of 24^th October 2019, the recording picked up at least a dozen flight calls from Redwings and a Blackbird. 2020 has been much more productive in variety of species so far, largely thanks to already having the recorder ready for use through the peak migration period in spring.

Recording of Tawny Owl, 10^th September 2019

Of the 59 bird species I’ve recorded from the garden so far this year, 5 of them have been picked up exclusively on the overnight recordings. 26^th March produced a Coot at around 2.54am, an infrequent visitor to Tattenhoe’s waterways rather than established resident like its close relative the Moorhen. 5^th April produced my first garden record of Oystercatcher, an occasional flyover here in recent years, calling as it passed over at 00.50 am, with another a few weeks later at around 1.13 am on 15^th June.

By far the most exciting bird I’ve recorded since starting this and the least expected one for my suburban garden was a male Nightjar, churring for a few minutes somewhere nearby at 3.55am on 31^st May, just as the dawn chorus was starting to kick off. Surrounded by houses with a few deciduous thickets nearby, this isn’t the sort of place where I would have actively been looking out for them initially, however in research and speaking to other birders online, I found out that they have been known to travel several kilometres away from their heathland- and woodland-based breeding grounds while hunting. He could have also been a passing migrant, albeit a late arrival, like the one I found hawking around an oak tree further along the Tattenhoe valley on 2^nd October last year.

Below: Spectogram and recording of Nightjar churring among Robin song, 31^st May 2020

Two other firsts for my garden since the Nightjar have been the Little Grebe, calling at around 1.16 am on 11^th June and 3 am on 21^st July and another rare flyover for the Tattenhoe area, the Little Ringed Plover, making two calls at 1.34am on 15^th July. Small passerines have also made brief callouts in the dead of night, with single bursts of song from a Blackcap at 23.49 on 14^th April and a Lesser Whitethroat just after midnight on 21^st May.

Below: LIttle Grebe, recorded 11^th June 2020

Below: Blackcap, photographed Howe Park Wood, April 2017; Recording of male Blackcap, Tattenhoe, 14^th May 2020

Conclusions

A typical night usually starts with traffic noise, with the last two hours ending with a gradual build-up of garden birds. The fleeting flight calls of passing migrants have been few and far between so far but nonetheless, it’s a small project that has proven well worthwhile, helping to record several species I’ve rarely come across within this locality in the daytime, plus more locally common species that I haven’t previously heard at night.

This is a field of birding I would love to hear about more people in Milton Keynes getting into. With such a diverse range of habitats across the city, there are near countless possibilities for what might get recorded along the way. It has proven to be a great way of picking up rarities and local scarcities across the UK, such as the Ortolan Bunting, Bittern and Quail.

Do not feel pressured into having to know all the vocalizations of British birds before you get started. There are plenty of guides online that can help you along the way, plus websites such as Xeno-canta which are packed with thousands of bird songs and calls, many of which are labelled as nocturnal recordings. Searching ‘#nocmig’ on Twitter has usually been my way of keeping an eye on what other people have found on their recordings across the country, which has been useful for finding out about unprecedented night-time movements of species like the Common Scoters, plus positively identifying flight calls during the height of migration through spring. With Autumn migration starting to kick off, now is a great time to get started, the sooner the better!

I am still a beginner with this and have much to learn about the technicalities of audio enhancement and recording, but I am pleased with the results so far. A website I would highly recommend checking out, should you wish to get stuck in is: https://nocmig.com/.

Harry Appleyard
August 2020

Photos by Gordon Redford. Above: a Crescent moth

If someone had asked me on the 31^st July how I thought the past month had been for mothing at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (LLNR) I would have replied by saying that, apart from a couple of highlights, it had not been especially great.  It did not feel to me that it had been a good month. Now, having fed all the records into Mapmate, it is clear that my answer would have been incorrect.  The facts are that July, 2020 has been the best July since recording regularly at LLNR began in 2011.  The best not only in the numbers of moths attracted to the moth traps there but also in the numbers of species recorded.

4,746 moths was the July, 2020 total and this exceeded by some 400 moths the previous highest July figure of 4,339 in 2017.  The 236 moth species recorded in 2020 also exceeded the previous highest July figure, also in 2017, of 200 species. 36 of the 236 species recorded in July, 2020 were new to July records and 15 species were new to the site.  The other 21 new species to July but not new to the site had been recorded in other months. Good quality biological records are vital so that effective nature conservation decisions can be made and they can also confirm, and in my case, disprove a “feeling” that the month had not been that good. As alluded to above, there were some highlights and probably the brightest of these was the appearance on the 24^th July of a Dark Crimson Underwing.

Dark Crimson Underwing (Photo: Gordon Redford)

This is a moth on the move.  The Atlas of Britain and Ireland’s Larger Moths states that it is ”A rare moth confined to the New Forest and a few woods in north Hampshire and south Wiltshire with signs of a recent increase in range”.  The Buckinghamshire County Moth Recorder told me that it was only the 3^rd record for Bucks in modern times with the other 2 being in the last 2 years.  The caterpillars feed on Oak.

Highlights numbers 2 and 3 are also moths on the move. On 8^th July 2 Dotted Fan-foots (or should it be feet?) were found in the trap.

Dotted Fan-foot (Photo: Gordon Redford)

The Atlas again has this moth expanding its range from the wetlands of East Anglia, Essex and the Thames Estuary westwards. The County Moth Recorder has this record as 25 km further north than any of the 40 or so records he has for the county.  Let us hope that the moth takes to the wetlands of Milton Keynes.

Highlight number 3 is a Tree Lichen Beauty which appeared on 27^th July.  I have to say that I do so like those moths wearing green and it is good to have this one join the list.  The green seems to wear pretty quickly so it is especially good to see a freshly emerged specimen.

Tree Lichen Beauty (Photo: Gordon Redford)

After three 19^th century records, there were no sightings in Britain until 1991.  Immigration became more frequent and by the early 2000s, the moth was established in south-east England and it is now steadily spreading.  The moth was not in the trap but on the wall behind it which is covered in lichen.

Having owned up to liking my greens, there now follow 2 moths that made appearances in July sporting some green.  On 17^th of the month on the last egg box to be checked I found this Large Emerald.

Large Emerald (Photo: Gordon Redford)

It was the third record for LLNR and was last seen in 2015.  Caterpillars feed on Birches and some other trees too.  Its legs are tucked away in the photograph but they are brown and white in colour.

The final “green” moth is one of a group of LLNR specialists in that their favoured habitat is wetland.  It is the Cream-bordered Green Pea.  It is about 10mm in length and rests with its wings at a steep angle.

Cream-bordered Green Pea (Photo: Gordon Redford)

It is resident at LLNR and 3 were recorded in July on 12^th, 29^th and 30^th.  Its caterpillars feed on the terminal shoots of sallows and willows.  A good friend of mine once remarked that a name like Cream-bordered Green Pea sounds like something that should be on a menu rather than be that of a moth.

Another wetland specialist is the Crescent and there were 9 records for this month in July. The food plant of the caterpillars is Yellow Iris and Great Fen and other sedges and Bulrushes.   It overwinters as an egg.

Crescent (Photo: Gordon Redford)

Gordon Redford

While inspecting one of the ponds in Tattenhoe yesterday (31st July) I spotted an Emperor that stood out from the rest nearby. With green eyes and a largely brown abdomen with a blue segment beneath the wings, it was almost immediately clear this was a male Lesser Emperor. Getting sharp, detailed pictures was a bit of a challenge as he spent several minutes patrolling the pond, occasionally getting into fights with the other male Emperors before disappearing over a meadow nearby. Fortunately, the few I did get, while blurry and a little distant, were clear enough to show the distinctive features.

Lesser Emperor Anax parthenope (Photos: Harry Appleyard)

After its first appearance in the UK in 1996, this species has slowly appeared throughout England and Wales, breeding across an increasing range of sites, becoming less of a vagrant and more established coloniser. They have already been present in Buckinghamshire for several years but this is the first one to have ever been recorded in Milton Keynes, verified by the British Dragonfly Society’s Bucks County Recorder Alan Nelson.

Having skimmed past them in my odonata books over the past few years, it was amazing to finally see one, out the blue and virtually on my doorstep!

Unfortunately there was no sign of him today, 1^st August 2020, in the same location or around any of the other ponds nearby. There is a good chance he may have just been passing by, especially with the strong southerly breeze from yesterday afternoon onwards. Still, with recent sightings of them at Tring and Wilstone Reservoirs over multiple days recently, it is worth keeping an eye out for them around MK’s large ponds and lakes. If you find any in MK or any other part of Bucks, be sure to report them via The British Dragonfly Society: https://british-dragonflies.org.uk/recording/submit-your-records/

Harry Appleyard

Currant Clearwing moths ….no!…but….

A few weeks ago I put in an appeal here to see if there were any extensive black or red currant bush plantings in or near MK, which I could access.  The objective was to place a synthetic lure in prospective sites to see if Currant Clearwing moths Synanthedon tipuliformis were present.  This was always a rare species, but as the growing of currant bushes in gardens has declined, it is presumed it has also decreased in numbers.

I received two very positive responses.

The first was very local to me, where Jenny Mercer obtained permission for me to place a lure in Stony Stratford, Wolverton Road, allotments, under her supervision, only for that to be withdrawn by a ‘jobsworth’ at the last minute.

Undaunted, on Tuesday 23^rd June, I decided to recce the allotments to see if the currant bushes were close enough to the fence to make it worthwhile to put up a lure outside.  I decided to try, but was taken by the proximity of some old apple trees.  So I first put up a Red-belted Clearwing Synanthedon myopaeformis lure (another nationally rare species) on a sapling outside the allotment fence, with no expectation at all.  By the time I had put up the Currant Clearwing lure on another sapling and turned round, there were two male Red-Belted Clearwings at the first lure.  Once photographed, that lure was returned to its sealed and cold container in a ‘cool bag’, so that they would not be attracted again.  They need to be attracted to real females.

 
Red-belted Clearwing Synanthedon myopaeformis, Stony Stratford 23 June 2020 (Photos: Andy Harding)

My second lead for the Currant Clearwings was provided by Julie Lane, who arranged for me to contact Mike Totton, the Chairman of the Olney allotment association.  He was perfectly happy to allow me access, but finding a mutually convenient date with the appropriate weather conditions of sunshine and a light breeze was not easy.

In the period before we actually met, I discovered two relevant things.  Firstly the Currant Clearwing ‘season’ in other areas had started early and could easily be ‘over’.  Secondly, during a Zoom meeting of the Beds moth group, I noted that Raspberry Clearwing Pennisetia hylaeformis had been found in north Bedfordshire.  This is a fairly recent colonist which appears to be spreading west from Cambridgeshire, where it was first discovered in 2007.

By now the continuing inappropriate weather was making our lack of a rendezvous embarrassing.  Therefore, despite poor conditions, I visited Mike on his allotment to explain what I wanted to do and why.  I put up lures for both aforementioned species … but not for very long as conditions worsened.  However, Mike did give me carte blanche to visit whenever I wanted. In the next week only Friday 17^th July seemed at all likely. So I gave it a go, placing a Currant Clearwing lure invitingly adjacent to a nice crop of currants.  There were a few scattered raspberry bushes I could see, but placing a lure close to any of them meant watching with binoculars while attending the currant bushes.  Given this tricky situation I simply hung the Raspberry Clearwing lure on a pole close to where I was standing.  To my amazement, ten minutes later a male Raspberry Clearwing turned up, and I was able to take a few pictures.  After a couple of minutes, I took the lure down for reasons noted above.  Needless to say, no Currant Clearwings appeared in the next half an hour, but I think I got a great deal, since Raspberry Clearwing has only been formally recorded in Buckinghamshire on one occasion in 2012, with, possibly, a not yet submitted sighting in 2019.

 
Raspberry Clearwing Pennisetia hylaeformis, Olney 17 July 2020 (Photos: Andy Harding)

Currant Clearwings will have to wait until next year.

Andy Harding
July 2020

I live in a 2-year-old new-build in Gawcott.  The front was a horrible desert – completely block-paved.  We ripped up the block paving, re-laying just enough to serve as a driveway, and returned the rest back to nature as far as we could. We chose to put a rowan tree in – to be honest, in the very ambitious hope that we might get waxwings in winter one day.  It flowered like mad this spring and the berries are coming on well.

I was amazed to do a bit of “washing-up time” birding from the kitchen window today and see a blackbird already setting about the berries.  It might not be my target bird but I was still very pleased to see that when you invite nature in, it will come.

(Not a great photo but not bad, given I was up to my elbows in washing up suds the minute before!)

Sue Hetherington
July 2020

In late May and then throughout June and into the first few weeks of July, we are privileged to enjoy the emergence and spectacular appearance of male Stag Beetles (Lucanus Cervus). Happily for us, one of the best places in the UK to see these wonderful insects is Totternhoe in Bedfordshire, just a few miles south of Milton Keynes, the topography of which means one can see them both flying and settled without too much difficulty.

Totternhoe Knolls  is located on the north-east side of Totternhoe village, and the woodland spilling down from the Knolls meets the beetles’ requirements with undisturbed dells and hollows full of dead trees and rotted oak stumps, home to the inch-and-a-half long, curved beetle larvae.  Emergence into the adult state takes between four and seven years. Dependent upon available nourishment for the larval stage, the adult male beetle may be anything from one to three inches long, possessing ‘antlers’ (the male beetle’s jaw appendages) upwards of half-an-inch to over an inch long. And yes, they can pinch unwary fingers to draw blood, which I can attest to from my first ever Stag Beetle encounter in southern France, despite literature assuring you to the contrary. So, best not to touch!

(Photos: Matt Andrews)

With their wing cases stuck outwards and upwards at ninety degrees to their body line, sepia wings frantically buzzing and legs akimbo with those spectacular jaws jutting out to the front, these insects present a unique sight and sound on balmy June evenings.  The Elm hedge lining the opposite side of the road makes ideal landing spots and with care, you can hear the male beetles rustling about in the crisp bunches of Elm leaves.

Female beetles are difficult to find but by wandering – carefully! – with a good torch, along the rather busy Castle Hill Road from the ideal starting point of the Cross Keys pub, a great refreshment spot in better times, from around 9.45pm through until 10.30pm, you should both see (and hear) male Stag Beetles flying like miniature lunar-landers above you along the tree-line right down to head-height!

Enjoying the sight and sound of Europe’s largest beetle has become a much looked-forward to experience every summer and really is to be recommended as something not to be missed.

Matt Andrews
July 2020

For those of you who know and enjoy Stonepit Field at Great Linford, in particular the species-rich limestone scrape which gives the site its name, you may also like to visit Stanton Low this summer.

Two new scrapes have been created at Stanton Low using a similar seed mix to that used at Stonepit over 20 years ago – and already wildlife is flourishing. There are several hollows near the canal which are the relics of the nineteenth century limestone quarrying which took place here. Early in 2019, the topsoil was removed and subsequently Parks Trust staff and volunteers sowed the seed mix. Dominant in the seed mix is kidney vetch Anthyllis vulneraria which is the larval foodplant of Small Blue butterfly. The butterfly should be able to make the short hop across from Stonepit and colonise this new habitat. You will also find Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil Lotus corniculatus, Salad Burnet Sanguisorba minor, Field Poppy Papaver rhoeas and Sainfoin Onobrychis viciifolia in these hollows. Also of note is Viper’s Bugloss Echium vulgare, a plant which is cropping up more and more in Milton Keynes of late.

Wildflowers at one of the Stanton Low scrapes, June 2020 (Photo: Martin Kincaid)

When Helen and I visited one evening recently, we saw plenty of Small Tortoiseshell, Meadow Brown, Ringlet and Marbled White butterflies and a fantastic number of bumblebees enjoying these nectar rich plants. Spoil from the two scrapes was mounded up close by and these mounds are now covered in thistles and teasels, which are another great resource for pollinating insects. The scrubby grassland surrounding the scrapes now regularly hosts breeding Grasshopper Warblers as well as the more abundant Common Whitethroat. Lesser Whitethroat has also been present.

I thoroughly recommend a visit to this new habitat. If visiting by car, park in the large car park off Wolverton Road near Asda (SP837417). From here, follow the mown path alongside the canal until you reach the two scrapes. There are seats and picnic tables right next to the scrapes.

Martin Kincaid

Main photo: Burnished Brass. All photos taken by Gordon Redford

At the beginning of June 2020, the number of species recorded in June at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (LLNR) stood at 293 accumulated over the 9 years that records have been consistently collected there.  By the end of June 2020, the number of species recorded in that month now stands at 310, an increase of 17 species. Of those 17 newly recorded June species, 3 were new records for the site and the remainder were all species that had made early appearances as they have been recorded in July up till now.  This appearance of some moths earlier than previously recorded continues the trend noted in the report for the month of May.

The month began with the appearance of the Beautiful China-mark some 10 days earlier than previous earliest date.  The moth is very well named as the photograph below shows.  There are 4 species of china-mark moth which remarkably have aquatic or subaquatic caterpillars.  The china-marks are named from the resemblance of their wing patterns to makers’ marks pressed into Chinese porcelain.

Beautiful China-mark 

The first week of June, the 4^th to be precise, saw the appearance in the trap of the Burnished Brass.  21 were recorded during the month which is bettered only once in the 10 years of records.  The caterpillars feed most often on Common Nettle of which there is plenty at LLNR.  The adults, when fresh, are a delight to move when the sun is shining as the “brass” really comes into play.

Burnished Brass

One of the 3 moths recorded as new to the site in June was the Burnet Companion.  It is a day-flying moth and has probably been there all the time that this recording programme has been in place and before that too. Why it is so named is a bit of a mystery: although they occur in the same habitat as other Burnet moths they are seldom seen together, as the Burnet Companion flight season is over by the time the Six-spot Burnet appears.

Burnet Companion

The number of moths to visit the trap in June was 1,851 with 149 species recorded.  This compares with 2,824 moths and 170 species last year.  A Hornet was found on an egg box in the trap in mid-June so it may be that the Hornets are affecting numbers.  The Heart and Dart was the most numerous of the moths in June numbering 239.  Often the most abundant moths are also the most variable and the Heart and Dart is no exception.  However, all show the pair of pegs or darts on the top of the wing and the rough heart shape mark about half way down.

Heart and Dart

At the other end of the scale, it was good to report records for Iron Prominent and Leopard Moth, just one for each.  Neither appear in large numbers nor every year.  There are 9  Prominents in the UK and all have a tuft of scales which sticks up like a little pyramid.  The Iron Prominent is so named because the dark grey wings are edged with flecks of red-brown or rusty iron. Leopard Moths spend at least 3 years as caterpillars as they feed inside the trunks, stems and branches of trees where large volumes of wood have to be eaten to provide enough food for the caterpillar to develop.

                 
(l) Iron Prominent; (r) Leopard Moth

It is very good to report that 9 Scarlet Tigers were recorded during the month of June 2020.  I can recall the great excitement caused about 10 years ago when a couple were found at Shenley Brook End so for 9 to be counted is something special.

Scarlet Tiger

On the last day of the month it was lovely to see a Maple Prominent on an egg box in the trap.  Only the third time to be recorded there in the 10 year period and a very fine moth too.

Maple Prominent

Gordon Redford, June 2020