Toadflax Brocade at Berrylands Station

It's been a very slow start at Berrylands this year, Oak Beauty on April 9th and Dark Chestnut on April 15th were both station firsts and very welcome they were, but things picked up yesterday with a Brimstone Moth and a Toadflax Brocade, the fifth succesive year I've recorded this species here. The macro year list stands at 12 species but things should really start to pick up from now on

Nick

Toadflax Brocade!

Toadflax Brocade...

Jersey Tiger (ab. lutescens)...

Couldn't resist posting a quick couple of shots of these two absolute gems, which turned up in the garden moth trap this week- Toadflax Brocade last night (16th August) and the Jersey Tiger on the 11th August. Both have been at the top of the garden wish list for a while now, but I never realistically thought I'd have a chance of catching them.

Toadflax Brocade is a particularly interesting record, as its always been a rare species confined to shingle beaches along the south coast. However, recent years have seen an increase in wanderers further inland, with the possibility of breeding in certain areas of Surrey and London.

Toadflax Brocades at Berrylands

Toadflax Brocade, Berrylands Station, May 29th 2012

On May 29th 2009 I found a pristine Toadflax Brocade at Berrylands Station; it was a searingly hot windless day and I presumed that the moth had flown north from the coastal shingle of Romney Marsh and logged it in my notebook as a "probable migrant", then on a rather unsettled day in early August I found another one and  had to think again about the status of this moth at Berrylands. The following year I found two moths in May and three on July 25th. In 2011 I found one on May 17th and on Tuesday (May 29th) I found the moth in the photograph. A total of nine moths in four years suggests to me that this moth is now resident in suburban Surrey, albeit in small numbers; I have searched the area around the station for Toadflax but so far I haven't found any, but this moth will feed on cultivated forms of the plant so the station specimens could have their provenance in a local garden. Toadflax Brocade flies in two overlapping generations in late May/June and July/August and all the sightings at the station fit neatly into this pattern. So far it's been quite a disappointing year at the station, things got off to a good start with an exceptionally early Small Dusty Wave on March 21st but up to and including the TB the station macro list for 2012 stands at just 21 species; hopefully the floodgates will open now and I'll have a sew more moths to talk about.