The Old Vic- best moth night this year so far

A cloudy night with temperatures around 10 C seemed to have done the trick with over 50 moths in the trap of 19 species most of which were new for years. 

The first Blackcap of the year in the garden this morning too. Swallow and House Martins have been in for a week or so now and Chiffchaffs for longer. I haven't heard the local Curlews yet (they are normally singing and displaying by now and can hear them from here)- I saw a twitter post by Nick Mariner yesterday saying that they haven't arrived at Waterstock yet which is a bit worrying as I've normally seen there round here since early March- fingers crossed they return this year. 

Blossom Underwing- only the 2nd garden record 

Frosted Greens- two last night, a brighter one above and less well marked one below. Only the second and third records for site. 

Purple Thorn 

Nut-tree Tussock of the melanotica form - a new form for me. I had the other two forms in the garden this time last year see here

A nice fresh Pale Mottled Willow 

Oak Tree Pug I presume 

The closest I can get to this is Sycamore Slender, Caloptilia hemidactylella- only the second one of these too (if approved)

A garden lifer today- I presume a Smooth Newt (rather than Palmate), (above and below) a young one and presumably Smooth due to orange (rather than yellow) under belly

The mystery stowaway sea-slug (nudibranch) that we found in our reef tank turns out to be quite a sinister creature. I think it's a Mimic Nudibranch, Phyllodesmium rudmani that mimics and eats Xenia corals. I suspected it might be as our Pulsing Xenia kept getting smaller and smaller and the sea slug was getting bigger and bigger. I've taken it out the tank now and there's only about 10% of the xenia left. Elsewhere in the reef tank after sulking for a week our Tree Coral has finally started to open.  

Easter Week 2

Last day of the Easter holidays today and back to school for Jacob tomorrow. Not much time in the school holidays to do any serious natural history stuff but a great time to do more nature activities with the boys (who knows one day, with the right early experiences, they might want to pursue ecology/nature and have a bigger impact than I ever could, hopefully, although I still don't know whether the best path for that would be academic, amateur/fun, eco-tourism, consultancy, NGO, green finance, policy/politics, farming/horticulture or nature media which is why I had a go at the lot! I guess the answer to that is something like follow your heart and the money. a bit of Ikigai and also the future of work is likely to be more diverse so having a go at a few things over a working lifetime (or at the same time) might actually be a good idea- I've enjoyed doing that which kept things fresh and interesting, I think the mobile workforce, remote working, gig economy, more freelance/self employed opportunities and hivemind/AI  economy that is crystallising will maybe make that more common too- who knows).

Anyway after our trips to Arundel WWT, the south coast and Wolburn safari park last week, this week we did the London Natural History Museum and fossil hunting on the Isle of Sheppey. In between there's been some home days, the garden stuff, the mini-zoo and it was also Jacob's birthday party so hopefully the boys have had an excellent staycation. 

The moth trapping is still slow but added a few new for years. Best on the garden bird front was a Oystercatcher flying over calling a couple of nights ago. Picked up a few year ticks elsewhere this week- Whimbrel on Sheppey and Reed Warbler and Willow Warbler at Beddington after work. Planning on doing some more serious birding this week  in Oxfordshire and the weather seems to be improving for entomology too. Next week I'm back out to the Bulgaria project for some hardcore birding, a bit of work on the project, mothing and another mini-herping trip too (a Leopard snake hunt). 

Early Thorn

A really nice Clouded Drab (left) and Red Chestnut 

Never noticed the scale tufts on an Early Grey before 

The Hackbridge NDG have done a great job on making the Beddington Farmlands entrance more attractive this Spring, Great to see the inspiring community work (although I did confess to Holly this week that I did so much community work when I was working on the Beddington Farmlands project that I feel like I used up all the community spirit in me - its possible I can't actually do another good deed for the rest of my entire life- the thought of doing something altruistic now almost makes me sick. I think becoming more family orientated does that- although might just be me turning into a selfish old bastard) 

Adult Herring Gull with nesting material at Beddington. Lesser Black-backs are already breeding nearby in Croydon (and visit the farmlands to feed) and it looks like Herring Gulls are attempting to breed nearby too

The trip to the London NHM was somewhat spoilt by ridiculously long entrance queues, over two hours. Would NOT recommend going in school holidays unless you've got a ticket or membership

Warden on Sheppey- one of the top fossilising spots in the UK, we found a few Eocene gastropods but Jacob was more interested in splashing around and getting stuck in the mud and to be fair we also spent too much time in Leysdown gambling in the arcades

Jacob at his first landslide 

The tide was out at the Ferry House and we managed to walk all the way to the end of the causeway. The Ferry House was excellent food (about £40 per head for 3 courses). Today we had to save money so we had fresh seafood and jellied eels from Leysdown (like a down to earth Southend - you have to see it to believe that's even possible) and had a picnic on the beach. 

Holly and Isaac 

100 species in the mini-zoo fail

One of the Easter holiday missions was to reach our target of 100 species in the mini-zoo. Our exotics supplier, Exotics at Heart, unfortunately didn't have our Scorpion in time and our Feather-duster worm in the reef tank is currently laying on the bottom of the tank outside its tube so we might be one species down there too, so currently we are stuck on 98 species. We could have just bought any random two species today but really want something iconic for number 100, like a Scorpion so will have to wait and hopefully everything else stays alive. We are doing pretty well (I think)- we've had a 82% success rate of animals we've introduced into our controlled environments over the last year (a Paludarium, Reef tank, a new Invertebrate tank and a Gecko tank) and the Paludarium is increasingly bioactive (a self sustaining environment) with breeding cichlids (we have about 30 Convict Cichlid fry at the moment). 

Zoological nature conservation (keeping wildlife in zoos/controlled environments) is sometimes a controversial subject but is certainly one aspect of biodiversity and nature conservation. Seems to make sense in a rapidly disappearing natural (outside human management)  world to integrate the human environment closer with animals and plants (pets and houseplants and gardens etc) and to contemplate where do we actually draw the lines between 1) habituating wild birds and animals and making them dependent on human created environments like gardens, parks, engineered nature reserves and farmland and 2) breeding in the eaves. lofts,, walls and inside (house mice and spiders etc) of our dwellings and 3) the full domestication of wildlife (pets, zoos and collections) especially when non-native domesticated wildlife becomes naturalised in the wider environment (through escaping) and furthermore especially in the context of the modern craze of the deliberate introduction and re-introduction of domesticated wildlife back into the more natural environment.

It's all just a spectrum in the inescapable reality of the Anthropocene - the whole planet is becoming a human controlled environment and there is no other creature that we imprison in 'cages' and have such profound impact on it's natural behaviour than... ourselves. Keeping animals is a great way of developing some empathy of how global human elites manage non-elite human societies too, we really do 'farm' and 'keep' each other and sometimes in the most awful conditions- plenty of tower blocks are not much different to battery farms. I've been trying to teach Jacob the difference between intensively farmed humans (those that work in corporations and live in housing estates), free range humans (those who work in charities, civil service and other cushy numbers and come home to a nice suburb coop at night) and wild humans (hippies) and the difference between farmers and keepers (billionaires) and livestock and pets (everyone else). It's a great way of helping kids understand the tough decisions that human leaders have to make when managing any population of living organisms and the consequences of over feeding them and under feeding them, vaccinating or not vaccinating them or not getting the environmental conditions right and just neglecting them for a bit and the horrors that result in that. A walk down the aisles of Asda today revealed a few of those horrors. 

Ghost Mantis

Tiger Conch in the Reef tank- another great thing for kids is getting examples of a broad range of animal anatomy examples- we've got all kind of animal blueprints- star fish, tube worms, molluscs, anemones, fish, lizards, frogs etc

The Red Scooter Blenny (Dragonet) in the Reef tank 

The Blue Damsel or Blue Devilfish. Within a few hours we learnt why this was called a devil fish as it swiftly murdered its tank mate to become the only blue damsel in the village 

Long-legged Millipedes in the new invertebrate tank 

We didn't even buy this sea slug, it must have stowed away on one of the corals 

The developing reef tank - struggling a bit with this - the tree coral is refusing to open and the pulsing xenia could well be getting eaten by the sea slug, also got a problem with phytoplankton. Developing a coral reef is one of the most challenging home zoo projects. 

Overall the Paludarium has been a great success (today above and this time last year below) and pretty easy to manage . It's not been particularly cheap to do but now if we wanted to we could propagate this as it is developing into a self sustaining system 

Easter

Well that's the half way mark for Easter holidays with the kids. At the beginning of the week we stayed in Arundel for two nights and visited the WWT reserve, Swanbourne Lake and Bognor,  went to Wolburn Safari park on Thursday for Jacob's 6th birthday and also been spending some time in the garden. Also re-visited the small holding on the Selsey Peninsula which is still on our possible move-to options. 

On the few occasions there has been a chance to put the moth trap out it's been too cold- just the odd Hebrew Character. 

Best nature highlights this week include the first House Martin in the garden yesterday, the garden Tawny Owls are calling at night, the new garden Rookery is now at 3 nests, a Muntjac in the sheep field yesterday, Firecrests everywhere in the Arundel area, first Common Tern for the year off Selsey, Mandarins at Swanbourne Lake and a Great Egret on the WWT reserve. 

Great Egret at Arundel WWT

Hybrid Ridgway's Canada Goose x Barnacle Goose from the Ramsar Hide, Arundel WWT

Mandarin at Swanbourne Lake 

Adult summer 'intermedius' Lesser Black-backed Gull at Wolburn 

Signs of bird flu- a dead adult Gannet at Bracklesham Car Park 

Still trying out the new camera- here on a couple of captive birds at WWT and Wolburn- Cockatoo sp (above) and Dalmation Pelican (below) 

Can't believe I have gone this far through life without even knowing these existed- Bush Dogs at Wolburn

The Old Vicarage Rookery 

Pond dipping at Arundel with Jacob (6 years old this week). Dragonfly nymph and Caddisfly lava above. 

The Old Vic- more early Spring moths

The garden moth year list is now on 27 with a few new additions this week. 

Three Siskins going over were the first for the year for the garden too. There are now two Rook nests in the nascent rookery and at least two singing Chiffchaffs now. Five Fieldfares in the week were one of few sightings this year. 

Recent additions to the mini-zoo include Sand Sifting Starfish, Atlantic Anemone and Cleaner Wrasse.    

Woodpigeon, displaying it's scaley reptilian ancestory, taken in low light with the R7.

Brindled Beauty- new for year

Early Grey- new for year

Dotted Chestnut- new for year

Another Lead-coloured Drab

A nicely marked Clouded Drab

One of the Clothes moths. tinea sp. Seems to have a dark brown head and weak black marks on the wings so could be Common Clothes moth or Case-bearing Clothes moth. 

New additions to the Reef tank