Back...

 A bit of a gap in posting on here recently, due in no small part to the broadband going off  9 days ago. BT really are a shower when it comes to customer care. Its just lies, false promises and failed appointments one after another so after a bit of letter writing to the upper echelons in the company we are back in the land of the living.

As it happens, I don't have much to write about as work and household commitments have put birding on a back seat and even garden mothing has been intermittent. Hopefully we will be at full strength again from now.

I have managed to keep the insect-table stocked with fruit and drizzled with moth sugar on most days. There have been no visits from the targets yet, Old Lady and Red Underwing, but there is time yet. On the moth front there has been Large Yellow Underwing, Dark and Light Arches, Common Rustic agg, July Highflyer, Shuttle shaped Dart, Smoky Wainscot, Six striped Rustic, Herald etc. During the day it keeps the wasps away from us and also attracts a few butterflies with Comma, Red Admiral and Speckled Wood all having a go. 

 

Herald on the sugar table.

Since the last post, a few interesting things for my garden have turned up in the moth trap - 

Clockwise from Top left - White Satin, Sand Dart, Eudonia lineola, Hemp Agrimony Plume.

Gold Spangle, Agonopterix angelicella, Dark Marbled Carpet and Aethes smeathmaniana

Epiblema foenella, Caryocolum fraternella, Mompha locupletella and Red barred Tortrix. 

 

Looking for an Old Lady and the art of Sugaring.

I have been moth trapping in our garden on a regular basis since 2009. Over the years a respectable number of species have turned up including some firsts for the VC68 list and even Northumberland. Still though, a couple of nationally common enough species have eluded capture so it was time to try another approach.

Before the creation of the widley used electric light traps that bring us big catches at present, other methods had to be deployed by our lepidopterist forefathers in order to catch a few moths to pin in mahongany cabinets. One in particular drew my attention. Sugaring.

Sugaring is based on the fact that moths will feed on the weeping sap from wounded trees or from the honeydew secreted by aphids. Moths and butterflies are well known to feed on rotting fruit in orchards or from brambles over ripe but still on the bush.

Some species are more attracted to this than other, and when those species are not so strongly pulled to a light source, even better. Up here in Northumberland, my two scarce targets were Old Lady Mormo maura  and the Red Underwing Catocala nupta. These are very large and drammatic species and well worth a little time spent in the planning for their capture.

What is 'Sugar'?

It is a simple concoction made up as follows - 

A bottle of brown ale.

A bag of dark brown sugar.

A tin of treacle or syrup.

Pour the beer into  a large pan and bring to the boil. Do this gently to stop it frothing over. Simmer, allowing the alcohol and fizz to boil away. Then pour in the sugar and treacle. Gently simmer for a further 15 mins or so stirring regularly until all mixed. I like to stir in a couple of over ripe pears and a blackened banana, mashed, while simmering. Mash in the pan so it looks like the liquid below.

Allow to cool, and decant into the treacle tin or large jars. The mix will keep a couple of years, but watch for fermentation in case it blows the top off or breaks the jar. I keep mine in the shed.

Some sources advocate mixing some amyl nitrate, pear drops, or rum into it later but this can be harmful to the moths, getting them drunk, lethargic and liable to predation from mice, toads etc when they fall to the ground.

You can add out of date jam, or more mashed pears later if you wish.

I use it in two ways. 

1. Take a large plate or saucer, mine is a terracotta plant pot base dish. Keep some old fruit to be well over ripe such as pears, plums, peaches, blackberries and banana. Juicy fruits seem to be best but banana over done, certainly is an attractant. Its not an exact science so experiment.

I then drizzle some sugar mix over the fruit platter like gravy to finish. Place the dish in a sheltered wind free spot but not in an obscured area, moths like a clear flight line. Top the sauce up nightly and replace fruit as required.

  

Fruit mash dish - Old Lady dwarfing Large Yellow Underwing, Common Rustic agg, Shuttle shaped Dart, Lesser broad bordered Yellow Underwing.

2. Take a 1 or 2 inch decorating paint brush and simply paint a strip on a vertical surface such as a tree trunk, fence posts or what ever, but make sure its not where someone will lean on it or sit on it the next day.Top up your spots regularly and it will be permanently attractive.

Sugar painted on a fence rail. This one has bramble jelly mixed in. Its going down well with this Old Lady and LYUs.

And thats about it really.

It is most attractive from early dusk to midnight when things seem to go quiet. I check mine every half an hour or so. During the day, the plate is attractive to Red Admirals, Speckled Woods, probably Comma though I'm still waiting for that one, and of course wasps, so make sure it is in a quiet part of your garden. It does the job of keeping the wasps busy, so they dont come after you when you are having a drink outside!

Sugaring is a difficult thing to predict the results. Warm humid nights with a light breeze to waft the scent seems best. From July through to late October is the main season.

Even though my sugar spots are only feet from the 125w mv Robinson trap, I have still not caught an Old Lady at light but have had up to three together on my sugar when until now there had only been 4 records in the vice county in total...

My main target, Old Lady with LYU and Common Rustic agg. Note the Water Melon. They liked that too. Banana skins if you dont want to wast the whole banana.

  

Target No 2, Red Underwing, only my second one since one at light in 2009. This was the 5th VC68 record.  

Sugaring attracts a good range of species, but its not a trap so dont expect miracles. Perservere though and you may be surprised at the results this odd method produces.

The Gothic

Angle Shades and mates.

I wish I had potted this one up for closer inspection as it looks like a Copper Underwing rather than the commoner Svensson's Copper Underwing. Next time...

Its not all noctuids either, here a Fan-foot tries the wares.

Purple Clay

A trio of Red Admirals during the day.

Sugar table...

In less than optimum conditions my tray of mashed fruit and beer attracted a star turn the other night - a Red Underwing. Only my second after one in 2009, this may be the furthest North Red Underwing in the UK! Note my comment about this species in the previous post, now, where is that Old Lady?

Taking a photo in near black darkness is tricky, so I lit the moth with my headlamp and manually focussed on it with the on camera flash set. I took half a dozen shots and one came out sharp...

Still on the moth theme, decent records continue to arrive this week to more conventional means with 2 Butterbur in the same trap and my first Scarce Bordered Straw, a nice fresh darker specimen....

Scarce Bordered Straw

Butterbur is annual here, but usually only one at a time. This is my first multiple occurrence in the trap. Here with two Rosy Rustics for size comparison.

Grey-Chi seem to be getting scarcer year on year...

Hubble Bubble...

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

In the days before widely available electricity, those pioneering 19th century moth hunters had to resort to other means at their disposal. Many methods generally involved a lot of knowledge and field craft to find, eggs, larvae or pupae then rearing these through to the adult moth stage.

Catching the imago was quite tricky, by either 'dusking', not the nefarious activity of lurking in suburban car parks, but wandering, net in hand as the light fades to catch moths on the wing or by 'Sugaring'. Dusking was fine but in total darkness, a candle wasn't much use in attracting sought after specimens so bait was used. Things like red wine, beer slops and honey were all used. Moths of certain species naturally feed on nectar, tree sap and aphid honeydew, so this is a natural progression.

There are places in the New Forest where favoured sugaring sites left the patch on a tree for generations of moth collectors to return to, having been impregnated with many years worth of various sweety concoctions.

It is a much less used method nowadays, with the readily available MV light traps and portable generators on hand, but it cant be a bad thing to try some of the old ways. If for nothing else, it will hopefully increase the field knowledge of our familiar insects.

The way to do it is to make up a recipe along the lines of Macbeth's Witches, that will simulate fermenting fruit or sap and painting it in 2" strips on fence posts or trees along a line of about 50 mtrs and checking it regularly to pot up interesting customers. My brew is as follows -

1x Bottle of Brown Ale
1x Tin Golden Syrup or Treacle
1x Bag of Brown Sugar
4x Ripe Pears
1x Over ripe Banana.

All boiled and simmered together then cooled and stored in jars just like Ipin's marmalade until ready for use.

The other day I drained the beery solid mash from the pan and placed it in a plant pot tray in a south facing sunny spot below an old ash tree beside our garden. This pear and banana beer mash is like manna from heaven for the local wasp population, but it also attracted 4 Red Admirals and a Speckled Wood, then once it got dark, my first moth - a Svenssons Copper Underwing. A scarce moth in the garden... Not a lot but you have to start somewhere. My targets are Old Lady ( would be a first for me) and Red Underwing ( my only garden record was in 2009)...

The brew on the boil...

Three Red Admirals getting drunk...

One of the Copper Underwings, Svenssons is the most likely here...