In the Absence of Birds

The grassland habitat at Cogden is home to moth species very unlikely ever to turn up in the garden trap, and a couple today were new ones for me...

Yellow Belle, skulking in the grass

It was not keen to perch up in photogenic fashion, so I had to take what I could get...

Yellow Belle

The other new moth was much, much smaller...

The striking little Meadow Tortrix Grapholita compositella. At approximately 5mm in length it makes the Hawthorn leaves look huge.

The only migrant moth I encountered was a single Silver Y...

Silver Y hiding in the grass.

There were interesting plants too...

Common Spotted Orchid. Decidedly not common at Cogden and West Bex, this may well be the first I've seen at Cogden.

Bit of a weedy specimen, but the flowers were still lovely.

One of the other interesting plants was a new one for me. Mike Morse had told me where to look for Horseshoe Vetch - a rare plant at Cogden - but I had drawn a blank so far. Finally, this afternoon I found it. Much smaller flowers than I had imagined, and quite easy to pick out from the abundant Common Bird's-foot Trefoil on that feature alone...

Horseshoe Vetch

To illustrate how small the flowers are, here is one adorned with a Cocksfoot Moth Glyphipterix simpliciella, all 3.5 or 4mm of it.

I do wish I had taken up botanising in my youth. Still, even at this late age it is fun to dabble. A few years ago I learned what Dyer's Greenweed looks like, so am conscious that Cogden is liberally peppered with cheerful yellow patches of it...

Yellow patches of Dyer's Greenweed.

Dyer's Greenweed is apparently the foodplant of a number of scarce moth species. I suppose I should learn what they are, and look for signs of them.

Finally, I'm pretty sure I've never seen a Meadow Brown in May before...

Soon to be ubiquitous, but my first Meadow Brown of 2025 is worth a photo, especially in May!