13th October 2014 - Orbona fragariae (Óriás télibagoly)

Orbona fragariae (Vieweg, 1790)

One of the prizes of autumn. This was a welcome visitor to my sugared trees in October and early November 2013. It is a rare species throughout its large western Palearctic range. In Hungary it is said to live in very cool and damp habitats, such as undisturbed forest valleys and ravines (Ronkay & Ronkay 2006). My site however, is a warm, dry oak scrub with abundant rosaceous shrubs. It is a 'forest edge habitat', a south facing slope just below the 200 metre contour on the lower fringes of the Bükk mountains. Here its companions were Scotochrosta pulla and Rileyiana fovea. There was therefore the possibility that the 2013 moth was just a stray, but it turned up again, in the same spot (and again at sweet bait, not light) this autumn (13th October 2014). I am therefore now reasonably confident it is resident (though I have not searched for or found larvae). This information may be worthy of note since the species is threatened in many of its localities yet its habitat requirements are incompletely known. Heiner Ziegler and Wolfgang Wagner, outlining the situation in Switzerland and Germany, suggest a somewhat broader range of habitats can be used which includes certain types of rocky hillside, shrub-rich slope, parkland and extensively managed forest edges.

Field notes on my three sightings of the species in Miskolc:
24/10/2013 1  imago at 'sugar' (liquidized fruit) on small Sorbus torminalis trunk, 20:00, 15°C.
02/11/2013 1 imago perched on twig amongst leaf litter on woodland floor, 18:15, 13.5°C, warming flight muscles. By 18:30 had made very short flight to sugared Sorbus torminalis trunk.
13/10/2014 1 imago at rest, 2m up on underside of Crataegus monogyna twig growing under (sugared) Sorbus torminalis, 19:40, 17-18°C. Fell into leaf litter on approach.

3rd April 2014 - Mud-puddling Seraphim

A small group of geometrid moths were found flitting around a shallow rut in this forest trackway and on closer examination some of them were seen working their proboscides on the damp soil surface. They were Lobophora halterata (The Seraphim or Szárnyfüggelékes Araszoló). A brief shower during what had been until then a very dry early spring had resulted in a small puddle forming on the trackway. Whereas elsewhere on the forest floor the water quickly disappeared through soil percolation and evapotranspiration, in the shady rut the moisture was slightly more long lived. 

Lobophora halterata

Mud-puddling - the intake of moisture from damp mud by adult Lepidoptera - is often associated with butterflies and can result in spectacular congregations of insects (see here  for a great 3 minute film about this from Thailand by www.earthtouchnews.com) but many moths have also been observed in this habit. The insects are usually males. In a field study in Pennsylvania by Adler (1982), in which more than 3000 individuals from 10 families of the Lepidoptera were seen visiting puddles, 99% were males. It is thought that this behaviour developed naturally from water drinking. The incidental intake of dissolved sodium ions (and perhaps other nutrients) may have given some reproductive advantage to the insects which has in turn led to the evolution of a behavioural habit which is very strong in some species (but not recorded in others - the biological and nutritional function of mud-puddling is still incompletely understood).

Lobophora halterata

14th March 2014 - sap rising for Nagy Rókalepke

Nagy Rókalepke  -  Nymphalis polychloros  -  Large Tortoiseshell  (phone photo)

Bükkszentkereszt. We saw this Nymphalis polychloros flying round the edge of the forest in bright sunshine at midday. Its activity seemed to centre around a mature hornbeam (Carpinus betulus). Closer inspection showed that the butterfly was feeding on, or at least drinking, fluids running down from a wound near the base of the tree. The bark damage was slight - possibly a peck mark from a woodpecker - but the whole of the shaded part of the stem below it was wet. This species of nymphalid is well known for feeding at tree sap (although it does also visit floral nectar, including Sallow) but in this instance the 'sap' was not at all sugary (the tree buds are only now beginning to break), rather watery. It has been a very dry March so far and in the Bükk hills moisture sources at the forest floor are not that common during spells like this. After a few days of strong sunshine, with no leaf canopy and a rush of growth in vernal herbs, soil surface water is very low. This tree wound was probably the only moisture available in the vicinity - nectar sources still being scarce - but whether the insect sought or benefited from the dissolved nutrients being transported from the tree's roots up to its soon-to-unfold canopy I don't know.

High in the hills later that day, and no less exciting than lepidopteran feeding behaviour, we found this scat. It was not very recent and had loosened as it dried out but, judging by the size (the coin is 24mm across) and the fact that it contains masses of hair and fragments of bone, I think this must be Wolf. Opinions welcome... 

possible Wolf dropping