June 2020 – Page 2 – David Bradley

Size really doesn’t matter when it comes to micro and macro moths

In the past, when I’m lecturing a friend at the pub about the moths I’ve photographed, the terms micro and macro come up and the inevitable question: “Oh, are the micros just the small ones, then?”. As a relative newbie moth-er I’ve struggled to offer a definitive answer. Some moths referred to as micro moths are a lot bigger than some of the smaller macros and some of the macro moths like the “footman” moths and pugs are smaller than some of the micros. Mothing experts have pointed me to papers and articles about identification and one contact suggest that the distinction is in the genitalia…therein lies the clue.

Size isn’t everything, in fact it’s nothing. The micro and macro distinction is nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with size as one might assume given the definition and etymology of those words. No, instead it’s all about evolutionary complexity. The micro moths are essentially the oldest, least evolved part of the Lepidoptera family tree.

All moths and butterflies evolved from a common ancestor about 250 million years ago, same common ancestor as the caddisflies. The micro-moth category includes all the species that evolved from circa 250 to 200 million years ago. The macro-moths are the moths that evolved more recently – from about 125 million years ago – once flowering plants first blossomed. Indeed, nocturnal pollination by moths is more common than daytime pollination by other types of insect.

Butterflies are in evolutionary terms just a sub-group of the micro-moths dating back to perhaps between 110 and 65 million years ago. All butterflies share a common micro-moth ancestor.

There are approximately 160 000 described species of Lepidoptera on the planet still living today, at least 62 000 of those are the micro-moths.

Lighting up green for Grenfell in a mad world

The Tears for Fears song “Mad World” seemed rather poignant to perform on the evening of 14th June 2020 as it was to be a third anniversary memorial of the Grenfell Tower disaster. It seems even more apt given the violence, death, and disease we are seeing at the moment.

Hello teacher, tell me what’s my lesson…

Red-footed Falcon

The red-footed falcon, Falco vespertinus, is usually found in eastern Europe and Asia but its numbers are falling because of habitat loss (what a surprise) and hunting (ditto). It is usually migrates south to Africa in the Winter. Occasionally vagrants are seen in western Europe in the summer.

Interestingly, one has been hanging around this last week or so at RSPB Fen Drayton, which is close to a village not far from us here in Cottenham. It’s apparently a first-year female so obviously not the same bird that has been seen on the same patch in previous years. We paid a visit to the reserve today and although light levels were poor for photography and the bird was perching on fence posts about 400-500 metres away from the guided busway that runs through the site, we got a good view of her and a few photos for the gallery.

Female Red-footed Falcon at RSPB Fen Drayton, 12 Jun 2020

Even the hare was doing a bit of birding

The whole time we were watching a Cetti’s Warbler was calling noisily from the trees behind us and there was a cuckoo doing its cuckoo thing not much further along the trees parallel to the busway.

Once home again, I heard on the birding grapevine that a Fulmar (a seabird many kilometres away from its normal range, although they do breed in Hunstanton in North Norfolk, apparently) had been seen flying over the woodland that nestles in the farmland between us and our village neighbour. There is also a Marsh Warbler showing nicely at NT Wicken Fen. This species usually spends the summer in Continental Europe (not Iberia, France, nor Italy though) and is another interesting vagrant to this area. One has to wonder whether lockdown and our changing habits and reduced activity over the last few weeks is changing the habits of some of these avian species.

Statuesque

angel north 2 e1518109072556 — Angel of the North

Flash diffuser

I just made the least flash flash diffuser imaginable. I cut a hole in an old, plastic ostrich-burger box we have used to store Xmas tree baubles in for the last seventeen years and fitted it to the camera with a redundant ring flash adapter. I switched away from ringflash earlier this year as it’s simply not good enough for decent entomological macro shots.

Anyway, been testing the ad hoc diffuser with some random macro shots of flowers in the garden – Mimulus (#PondLife), cornflower, wet poppy, red valerian, periwinkle, viper’s bugloss, yarrow buds, ceanothus fruit, and fading yellow wildflower…

It seems to work quite well…considering

The search for life on Mars

Later in the summer of 2020, NASA will launch its latest Mars rover, Perseverance. To coincide with that important scientific occasion, Elizabeth Howell, PhD and Nicholas Booth have told the greatest scientific detective story of all time in The Search for Life on Mars. Their approach and style are unique, they break many a convention of the scientific history books to make this truly accessible read with none of the bluff and bluster of so many so-called popular-science books and all of the guts and glory of a gripping wouldbe bestseller.

The world next door, otherwise known as the Red Planet, has intrigued humanity for centuries. From ancient astronomical observations to the science fiction of the modern era HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds to Andy Weir’s The Martian and to the amazing photography of the robotic rovers Curiosity and Opportunity.

For the first time in forty years, the missions heading to Mars – from the USA and China – will look for signs of ancient life. This is the latest chapter in the story of the Red Planet where fact is stranger than fiction, myths and false starts abound while red herrings and bizarre coincidences astound. Here are the triumphs and the heartbreaking failures.

This is the definitive story of how life’s extraterrestrial discovery has eluded us to date and how it will be found somewhere and sometime this century. The Search for Life on Mars is based on more than a hundred interviews with experts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and elsewhere, who share their insights and stories.

The Search for Life on Mars: The Greatest Scientific Detective Story of All Time by Elizabeth Howell, PhD and Nicholas Booth, Arcade Publishing; On sale: 23rd June 2020 | ISBN: 9781950691395 US edition here | UK edition here

If you came looking for my cover version of Life on Mars, the Bowie song, you can find it here.