My week in moths...

No trips out this week, so not much to report, although at least my GMS catch last night were all new species for my year list...

Light Brown Apple Moth, Yellow-barred Brindle, Scorched Carpet, Scalloped Hazel, Common Pug and Purple Thorn.

I have seen quite a few micros flying around in the daytime, mostly when I don't have a net with me, but at least a couple of not-in-the-garden moths were Gracillaria syringella (not new for the year list, this was called Caloptilia last year...) and Elachista rufocinerea.

I'm hoping to have one away trip this week...

Some year ticks at least...

A light on Tuesday gave me my first ever Frosted Green for the garden, together with Brindled and Double-striped Pugs, Hebrew Character and Streamer. During the same day, Adela reaumurella and Caloptilia syringella - which seems to have changed it's name to Gracillaria syringella - were also year firsts.

A handful of lights on a very cold very clear - but at least rain and wind free - night in a regular woodland site added Waved Umber, Swallow Prominent and Acleris cristana for the year.

As the flying moths were so few, we looked around for other stuff; cocoons of Buccalatrix thoracella on Lime, adult Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner (Cameraria ohridella) present on a Horse Chestnut (oh dear), mines of one of the Psychoides species on Hart's Tongue (no larvae visible) and the chrysalis of presumably an Endothenia species inside a teasel head, which I have retained to hopefully hatch. We also found the larval case of what we believe to be Taleporia tubulosa, a "bagworm".

A daytime trip on Saturday found a few micros; Incurvaria pectinea, Incurvaria masculella, Nematopogon swammerdamella, Grapholita jungiella and Cydia succedana were new for the year.

An evening session on the same site, which only lasted an hour or so due to the early onset of rain, added Semioscopis steinkellneriana (also a lifer for me), Common Wave, Scalloped Hook-tip, Brown Silver-line, Red Twin-spot Carpet, V-Pug, Pebble Prominent and Knot Grass.

A quiet week...

The nights have been either very cold or very wet this week, so not too many moths making an appearance.

I have been treated to Brown House Moth and Case-bearing Clothes Moth indoors this week :(

The garden trap has been on twice, with a total score of Lunar Marbled Brown (only the second in 4 years), Clouded Drab, Common Quaker, Hebrew Character and Amblyptilia acanthadactyla.

The 6W woodland trap only got 2 Nut-tree Tussocks and an Engrailed.

Next week looks like it's going to be more of the same; I do have two big trips in the diary, but they may both be rained off :(

This weeks mothing.

My usual sites were explored this week; still a bit cold at night with the clear skies, and the wind hasn't helped but quite a few new species for the year list (these in bold). The numbers are across all sites.

Lunar Marbled Brown - 6
Hebrew Character - 16
Chestnut - 5
Eriocrania subpurpurella - 10+
Twin-spotted Quaker - 2
Common Quaker - 16
Brindled Pug - 4
Water Carpet - 4
Brimstone - 1
Clouded Drab - 4
Streamer - 1
Frosted Green - 12
Lesser Swallow Prominent - 1
Small Quaker - 2
Pine Beauty - 1
Early Thorn - 1
Brindled Beauty - 2
Nut-tree Tussock - 2
Powdered Quaker - 1
Double-striped Pug - 2
Engrailed - 1
Early Grey - 1

Also an Endocrania sp. that has been "sent off" for id, something in the Olethreutinae part of the spectrum (if it can be id'd from a photo), the larva of one of the Endothenia sp. in a teasel head, and come larval cases of Colephora laricella.

 Brindled Beauty

 Coleophora laricella case

 Frosted Green

 Lunar Marbled Brown

 Lesser Swallow Prominent

Powdered Quaker

My week in moths

Well, spring definitely seems to have arrived - at last - in South Bucks. The days have warmed up, although there have still been frosts at night.

I've run 4 traps, one in a parkland setting, 2 in the garden and one in a woodland.

Not a vast amount of moths, but at least there were new ones on each night for my year list.

Common Quaker and Hebrew Character were the most-caught, with 11 and 19 respectively across the sites.

The new species were Red Chestnut (in fact, a lifer for me), Double-striped Pug, Agonopterix ocellana, Streamer and Pine Beauty (only the second ever in the garden).

 Pine Beauty

Red Chestnut

Also appearing were Small Quaker, Early Grey, Engrailed, Oak Beauty, Clouded Drab, Emmelina monodactyla and Diurnea fagella.

COAM in Spring

This year I and my mothing partners are going to concentrate on the Chiltern Open Air Museum site, just on the Bucks side of the border with Herts.

Although last night was the coldest of the week, we put out 3 traps (2MV and an Actinic - which only caught 1 moth). There would have been 4, but my MV bulb had mysteriously broken over the winter. Luckily I have more, just not with me.

Anyway, pending the correct numbers of each species from Rob, who kept the list:

1 x Yellow Horned
14 x Common Quaker
6 x Hebrew Character
6 x Clouded Drab
2 x Twin-spotted Quaker
2 x Small Quaker
1 x Chestnut
1 x March Moth
1 x Oak Beauty
1 x Agonopterix heracliana

Most of these are new for the site, mainly because I didn't start trapping there until May last year.

 Common Quaker

 Twin-spotted Quaker

Yellow Horned

First Micros of the Year

After deciding that spring was, on balance, starting to begin, I put the trap out again last night.

As it is now officially March, the best-represented species was the March Moth (3) but I also managed 4 micro species with 2 each of Emmelina mondactyla and Amblyptilia acanthadactyla; lurking in the leaf debris at the bottom was a single Agonopterix heracliana and outside the trap a Diurnea fagella.