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.

It has begun!

...at last. Moths have started to appear about these parts. Not many, but moths...

Last week I found a Satellite, and on Wednesday night, after a lovely warm spring day, the trap went on in the garden which trebled the year list with a March Moth and a Chestnut.

This morning, our 6W woodland trap held three very torpid Dotted Borders, which surprised us given the layer of frost that had to be scraped off the car.

So here we go :)

End of Year Round-up

I haven't posted on here for ages as the moths have been as rare as my words, although a holiday in Southern Italy in September was quite fruitful, especially if I left the hotel balcony light on during the night.

Anyway, having got my records together for the county recorder, I was pleased to be told that I had in my garden in August a 2nd Record for the County with a Cydia amplana:

I was beaten to First by only a few days, but there does seem to have been a bit of an influx into the home counties.

This was beaten though by a 1st for County Lampronia fuscatella caught with a friend at our regular woodland weekly trap.

Oh, OK, with another friend in Dorset in July we caught a 1st for mainland UK Southern Grass Emerald, but it wasn't in South Bucks, so it can't appear here.

To sum my year up, my garden catches were down to about 60% of the species and 50% of the numbers of the previous year, although having access to a couple of woodland sites and some away-from-home mothing on the South and West coasts, the quality has been good :)

Here's to the new season when it starts...

Quite a Quiet August

The garden trapping during the whole month of August has been very poor, and in common with many others, it really hasn't been worth putting the trap out most nights.

Looking back,I've caught a total of 66 species over the entire month, the best being new-for-garden species Lime-speck Pug and Small Square-spot and a single example of the migrant micro Cydia amplana, which was being reported from a lot of inland sites at the time.

To put that in context, at the start of the month, I did an all-night session with a friend at one of my work places, which happens to comprise 40-odd acres of woodland, grassland and fields, which caught 107 species. Best of those was probably the out-of-place Brown-veined Wainscot and also the start of autumn species like Rosy Rustic and Six-striped Rustic.

Another session yesterday at the same site produced around 55 species, with autumn definitely dominating proceedings with Centre-barred Sallow, Feathered Gothic and Frosted Orange all featuring, and Large Yellow Underwing in overwhelming quantities.

 Blood Vein

 Frosted Orange

White Point

A Thorny Issue...

This week I have been mainly trapping in my garden, with reasonable results and a few new species for my year list, seeming to comprise of 2nd-generation moths.

This week's theme has been various "Thorn" species with Early, Purple, August, September, Dusky and Canary-shouldered varieties (the latter was actually in the bedroom, so a new one for the house list as well!)

Canary-shouldered Thorn

Other new moths for the year list include Orange Swift, Chrysoclista linneella (a lifer for me), Tawny-speckled Pug and Pine Hawk-moth (first for the garden).

Chrysoclista linneella

The regular Thursday-night session in nearby woodland with the 6w light has produced Large Emerald and Dark Spinach.

Dark Spinach