When I last looked at the rain gauge ( 11:30) there were 21mm of water and its been light rain since then. Still as they say “It’s luverley wever for ducks!”, well at least greylag geese and coot seen respectively from the Tern and Ivy South Hides.
A gaggle of Greylag Geese outside Tern Hide
One damp coot
There was a class for digital wildlife photography here today for a session on bird photography, so after having topped up the bird feeders and opened up the hides I returned to the centre in a rather soggy condition. The damp weather hasn’t deterred quite few birds from singing though with blackcap, song thrush and wren song ringing through the trees, I thought I briefly heard a reed warbler as well. Can’t make up my mind whether they are genuinely delighted by this weather or just pleased to have left their sodden nests!
I’m scheduled to be leading a walk for dragonflies here tomorrow, so was hoping to get a chance to check out what is about, but unfortunately there is very little insect life on the wing, except for the obligatory midges and small flies. So at present it doesn’t bode well for tomorrow, unless the temperature improves and the rain passes.
The overnight rain didn’t deter some moths and there was an interesting range in the trap although nothing truly rare or dramatic. One of the casual (I include myself in this description) moth-trappers nightmares are the group of macro moths known as ‘pugs’, many of which look very similar. There are, however a couple that stand out and I’m reasonably confident of my identification of this V-pug with its striking green colour ( a fresh specimen, they fade you know!) and the ‘V’ shaped black marks on the forewings.
V-pug with its distinctive black ‘V’ marks
but not so happy about this specimen which I think is either a Foxglove Pug or Toadflax Pug, but it might be a Cloaked Pug.
Foxglove, Toadflax or Cloaked Pug??
We’ve certainly got lots of foxglove on the reserve, but I’m not aware of there being any toadflax, the respective foodplants of the first two species. Cloaked Pug is an uncommon, suspected immigrant species, so I think I’d discount it on those grounds and on balance I’d plump for Foxglove Pug. But then I could be wrong!!
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 
The Pug is a Double-striped Pug.
Thank you, Sean. As I think I hinted I’m rubbish at i.d.ing pugs and once I’d convinced myself it was one of those others, didn’t look much further. Now you point it out it’s obvious -Doh!