NORWICH AREA: High Ash Farm moth survey event

8th September 2018

There are some rather common early spring, autumn and winter moths that I've never seen, mainly because all of my garden moth trapping has taken place in small urban gardens where there is a noticeable drop off in species caught outside of May-August. I was therefore pleased to see that a Norfolk Moth Survey event was taking place in September at High Ash Farm, just south of Norwich. I hoped to see any of the Sallows, having previously only seen Barred Sallow, and more speculatively Convulvulous Hawk Moth, which has so far failed to show up on my specially-planted Nicotiana plants.

The weather forecast was for some light drizzle, which might have deterred some attendees, but we did end up with two generators and four traps, which were spread out along the woodland edge. One of the traps was under a big Ash tree, and being the foodplant of Centre-barred Sallow it was pleasing to see one almost straight away. In fact over the course of the evening I probably saw about 20! By the time I left around 40 species of adult moth had been recorded, of which Tufted Button (Acleris cristana) was another new one.

There wasn't much time for looking around before the traps were set up, but we did see a Hummingbird Hawkmoth caterpillar, feeding signs of Elm Zigzag Sawfly, the leaf mine of Sloe Midget (Phyllonorycter spinicolella) and Stewart pointed out a mildew on Duke of Argyll's Teaplant, Arthrocladiella mougeotii that is probably very common but goes unrecorded. Thanks to Ken and the rest of the group for an interesting evening - hopefully I can get to a few more moth survey events in 2019.

SOUTH NORFOLK: High Ash Farm Bluebell day

5th May 2018

On Saturday High Ash Farm opened up Foxes Grove, a usually private area of woodland, for a Bluebell day. We try to go and see Bluebells somewhere each year, so as Caistor St Edmund is close to the city we thought that this would be an ideal time to try to take Rose out in the sling. Having picked up Margaret the four of us continued on to the field car park put on for the event close to the woods.

It was a lovely sunny day, and there was plenty to see along the hedgerow as we walked down towards the woods, including Dock Bug, Dark-edged Beeflies, Sphaerophoria hoverflies and the bug Rhopalus subrufus. Walking along the edge of the woodland we got our first view of the Bluebells, and I noticed an interesting cranefly, Limnophila schranki, in some ditchside vegetation.

Entering the woods I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of Bluebells, and the undulating terrain meant that they were particularly impressive. We had a very pleasant walk, and naturally we also noted lots more wildlife, including several butterflies, hoverflies and galls. Cathy found a Meadow Longhorn moth (Cauchas rufimitrella), and Small Nettle Weevil (Nedyus quadrimaculata), Yellow-tail moth caterpillar and another caterpillar, possibly Autumnal Rustic, were also of note.

 Caterpillar on Bluebells - possibly Autumnal Rustic

 Meadow Longhorn Moth

 Yellow-tail moth caterpillar

 Small Nettle Weevil

Heading back to the car we were entranced by a Coal Tit that flew into a tree in front of us and carried out some Goldcrest-like flitting just above head height. Some Nomada bees along a sandy bank were of the need-to-examine-to ID type, and we ended the visit with a common but hitherto unrecorded by me sawfly, Aglaostigma aucupariae.

TAS VALLEY: Caistor St Edmund, High Ash Farm & Trowse

25th July 2017

After dropping Cathy off in the city I had a few hours to spare before picking her up again. I decided to head to Venta Icenorum, the old Roman Town at Caistor St Edmunds just south of the city. The main attraction here from a wildlife point of view is a large area of dry grassland with the river Tas wending its way through. Plant highlights here included White Mullein, Dark Mullein, Common Calamint and Restharrow.

Much of the grassland around the base of the monument had been recently cut, so I walked around the base of the mound to check out the flowers growing on the banks. The overcast weather meant lower returns than normal, but when I stopped to check out a Hawthorn I found a Hawthorn Beetle, an overdue first for me.

Other highlights on my walk round included my first Clover Melitta bee, several Common Blue butterflies, a Dusky Sallow moth and some unsually obliging Meadow Grasshoppers.

I crossed the road and had a quick look around one of the permissive paths at High Ash Farm, where I found some leaf mines in Himalayan Balsam. There are caused by a fly Phytoliriomyza melampyga. There were no East Anglian records on NBN, so I thought I could have a county first. However when checked with the Agromyzidae recording scheme there are actually several Norfolk records from datasets that aren't on the NBN Atlas. There are a range of reasons why this is the case, but it's not the first time that the NBN maps haven't born any relation to a species range that I have checked, which is a shame.

On my way back to the city I called in at Trowse Meadow and managed one patch addition, a twisted stem gall on Black Poplar caused by aphids.