Gilbert White's Ghost: Great end to a bad day

Welcome

Poor old Gilbert is getting restless. Despite the fact that there is more interest in wildlife than ever before, it seems that most of the so-called conservation organisations are losing interest in species. Instead they prefer to babble on about landscape scale conservation and ecosystem services (whatever they are). Could this be because most of their staff don't have any knowledge about species if they don't have four legs?
This is my attempt to encourage an interest in good old-fashioned natural history.

Thursday 13 June 2013

Great end to a bad day

I so want to write about how a certain institution that isn't very good at rowing at the moment has probably caused the UK extinction of a species. But Gilbert cannot afford to be sued at the moment so I'll hold fire until I have further information and move on to events later in the day but rest assured that GWG will haunt this organisation until the truth comes out.

I called in at Crab Wood near Winchester this evening to see how the UK BAP Drab Looper is faring at the site. Drab Looper feeds on Wood Spurge and there was a plentiful supply in areas that have been recently coppiced.

Sure enough I found a few Drab Loopers fairly easily, despite the weather not being ideal. Sadly they wouldn't pose on the foodplant for nice pictures so this is the best I can do.

I was in no rush to get home so I wandered around the wood for a couple of hours. I nearly trod on this:

I caught several Eulia ministrana - one of my favourite moths as it looks so like dead gorse flowers. Quite why is hard to understand as it has no association with gorse and is often found at sites like Crab Wood where there is no gorse.