More than a Little success in the garden

Back to the garden last night, where conditions were excellent, and I was relieved we didn't get the forecast thunderstorms. By far the best variety of the year to date included a Little Emerald which is new to the garden, along with a load of new for the years.

27th June:

14 Heart and Dart

10 Light Arches

9 Riband Wave

6 Rustic

5 Uncertain

5 Beautiful Hook-tip NFY

3 Buff Arches NFY

3 July Highflyer

3 Flame

3 Light Emerald

3 Dot Moth

2 Tawny-barred Angle

2 Mottled Rustic NFY

2 Minor sp.

2 Brimstone

2 Dark Arches

1 Fan-foot

1 Little Emerald NFG

1 Poplar Grey NFY

1 Iron Prominent NFY

1 Mottled Beauty

1 Engrailed NFY

1 Common White Wave

1 Heart and Club

1 Double-striped Pug NFY

1 Double Square-spot

1 Shuttle-shaped Dart

1 V-pug NFY

1 Brown Silver-line

1 Treble Brown-spot

1 Dunbar NFY

1 Willow Beauty

1 Common Lutestring NFY

Total: 33

V-pug

Engrailed

Buff Arches

Dot Moth

Double-striped Pug

Poplar Grey

Tawny Barred-angle

Little Emerald

fag-ends of March

At last I'm getting a few moths that are not Orthosiae (quakers and relations). The Diurnea fagella was from last night and the other three species from 31st March:

oak nycteoline (easily mistaken for a micro)

Engrailed (indistinguishable from small engrailed and probably the same species)

Diurnea fagella

Brindled pug (one of the first to appear and quite large for a pug)
Things should start to liven up from now on, especially where warm days are followed by cloudy nights.

Introducing me!

engrailed (above)

dotted chestnut (below)


Agonopterix alstromeriana


powdered quaker


emperor moth




yellow-horned





peacock butterfly

Lunar marbled brown

I'm Ken Noble. I live in the South-eastern corner of Surrey, under the Gatwick flight-path. (Wasn't the volcano a mercy?!)

I run a Robinson 125W trap but usually switch it off at bedtime, so I don't get the enormous catches that some people do. I started mothing about six years ago and my garden list is over 520 species now (I'm nearly up to 600 for Surrey). My main claim to fame was adding a tiny micro to the Surrey list - Argyresthia cupressella -though to be honest I wouldn't have known what it was if Graham Collins hadn't IDed it!

Trapping has been poor the last week or two because of cold nights, strong winds and lack of cloud cover. Last night I only had two lunar marbled browns, for instance. As this is my first post I'll put up one or two recent photos taken in my garden.

I enjoy photography - some of my efforts can be found on Mark Elvin's brilliant website: http://www.wildlife-galleries.co.uk/gallery2/main.php