Category Archives for Fauna

Commas

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An interval for maintenance has been completed and the narrative of life at the Exbury Egg can be continued. There is a hint of Autumn about the still sunny days and sugary juice from fermenting blackberries is providing food for wasps and a host Comma butterflies before their hibernation.

Known as Commas because of the distinctive silver shape on the underside of their rear wing, they are currently punctuating the fruity surface of the blackberry bushes with their raggedy edged orange and black topped wings.

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Two Dead Mice

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Found close to the egg where I store spares for the dinghy, were two dead wood mice.  I was surprised to find two so close together and wonder how they came to die. There were no obvious signs of injury and nothing poisonous amongst my supplies. I have placed them into separate containers drilled with small holes so they can decompose and hope to inherit two complete skeletons which I will try to assemble one cold Winter’s evening, like those Airfix kits of childhood.

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Moth Theatre

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A fluorescing tube in the ultra violet spectrum was employed to turn the egg into a huge moth attracting device last night. White cotton gauze stretched across the doorway was intended as the stage for a flickering theatre of moths in flight and a platform on which they could land for solo performances in both silhouette and spotlight.

The grey or dark dagger below (it is only possible to tell them apart by an examination of genitalia) was a memorable participant. In the caterpillar state they love blackthorn, so the nearby thicket is perhaps its own home and the axis of it’s nocturnal world.

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Snake in the Grass

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The sloughed off skin of a grass snake lay next to some old corrugated iron, which the snake itself uses for shelter. It’s been seen there many times over the years according to Nick, my guide and walking companion.  Though ‘Natrix Natrix’, was not at home and possibly skulking in the long grass nearby, a resident slow worm posed for a picture before defying its name and very quickly sliding from view.

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Canada Geese

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Around one hundred and fifty Canada geese arrived yesterday in the early evening, appearing from the direction of the Isle of Wight.  They were letting everything and everyone know they were coming with that raucous, noisy honking that ripples too and fro throughout the flying flock. Two small resident groups already here, frequent a pond on farmland adjoining Exbury Gardens and it is beginning to feel like the start of a Canada goose convention. I watched a pair of shell (shocked) ducks seemingly retreating out of their way.

These naturalised Canadians first settled in England in the 17th Century when they were introduced as attractions in the gardens of country estates and perhaps our local flocks still have some distant race memory of ornamental forebears on the Exbury Estate? I shall have to ask if any were ever kept hereabouts.

Moth Attracting Device No1 (General Purpose).

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A landing strip of white canvas is glowing beneath a pulsating false moon of mercury vapour light, visible from a great distance and sufficient to draw in in a large number and variety of Lower Exbury moths (in three hours my mothing mentors, Juliet and Richard counted over fifty different species without naming the micros present).

Small Fan-footed Waves, Large Yellow Underwing, Black Arches, Small Broad-bordered Yellow Underwings, Rosy and dingy Footmen, Sallow Kittens, Ruby Tigers and a host of other evocatively named characters spiralled in to join the party. Boris the puppy, triumphantly bagged a Brimstone before being hauled off early, much to his consternation and confusion.

I shall adapt the same principles of beguilement and attraction later in the month when I attempt to lead legions of lepidoptera  toward the light in the entrance to the Egg.

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