Pouring and Prominents

What appaling weather we've been having.  I haven't trapped since March!  I thought it was worth trying last night after a reasonably warm day, although I was sure to fit the rain guard!  I got a nice selection including a new species for the garden.  Unsurprisingly, all but one were year ticks.  The new one was a Swallow Prominent.  I'm used to getting Lesser, but it was nice to get both together.  Unbelievably, despite it being quite a diverse (or be it not that numerous) catch, I didn't get a single Noctuid!

8th May:

5 Brindled Pug

3 Lesser Swallow Prominent NFY

1 Swallow Prominent NFG

1 Brimstone NFY

1 Red Twin-spot Carpet NFY

1 Waved Umber NFY

1 Peppered Moth NFY

1 Great Prominent NFY

1 Grey Pine Carpet NFY

1 Purple Thorn NFY

1 Currant Pug NFY

1 Maiden's Blush NFY

1 Brindled Beauty NFY

I also got loads of Twenty-plume Moths and this micro, Plutella porrectella:

Plutella porrectella

Brimstone

Swallow and Lesser Swallow Prominents

Brindled Beauty

Currant Pug

Great Prominent

Maiden's Blush

Purple Thorn

Peppered Moth

Waved Umber

Scorching Scarcities

Well, the April scorcher continues, and this seems to be encouraging a few goodies to show themselves in the garden. I took a little break from trapping for a few days, but that didn't stop the moths coming...

Whilst watering the borders a few days ago, a Buttoned Snout blasted out of the Ivy and luckily landed on the fence where I could pot it up. A garden first, and one of the rarer species I've caught here, although it does seem to have its Surrey stronghold in the gardens of the North-east of the county...

On the 20th, I caught a single Cydia strobilella flying in the afternoon sun. This is another Surrey notable, recorded from just 5 sites, but is probably under-recorded. There is also a Norway Spruce, its footplant, two doors down, which might explain its presence...

Back out with the 15w Actinic last night, and it was a good haul with 24 species. The highlights being...

Ochreous Pug...

Grey Dagger agg.

 Waved Umber...

Brimstone...

Caloptilia syringella...

Caloptilia populetorum...

... as well as a Small Dusty Wave and Swammerdarnia pyrella, both of which were a bit camera shy.

Not exactly a highlight, but we have been getting quite a few Twenty-plume Moths in the house when I haven't been trapping, and up until now I have never bothered to photograph them. Its easy to overlook them from a distance, but when you do look closely, the detail on each feather like plume is quite something...

April show-ers

This warm weather is encouraging more moths to emerge. There were large swarms of long-horn moths on our local oak trees. They were too high to photograph but could well have been Nematapogon swammerdamella. Below is a selection that came to my trap last night:

purple thorn

nut-tree tussock

iron prominent

flame shoulder

common quaker (a worn specimen which at first glance looked rather like a powdered quaker)

brimstone

And a waved umber from a couple of nights ago...

Chafers don't Hog precedings at Norbury Park

I just had to be away for the week when it started to warm up didn't I! As a result I have not trapped in my garden for ages (I'll hopefully rectify that this evening), but I managed to get a fix from the mothing drug last night, and what a dramatic one it was.

I went to Norbury Park and trapped til 1am with David Gardner. The main surprise of the night was the shear number of Cockchafers. I think we got to about 50 come the end! They really were quite an inconvenience to say the least. Halfway through the night we also had a visit from a Hedgehog, and we were willing it over to help us clear the trap of Beetles!

Onto the moths, and we got 37 macros in the end, including a few surprises. I managed to get eight brand new species during the course of the night too. An interesting haul of Great Prominent also.

The final list (* is new to me):

Mocha

Coronet (a dark form)

Treble Lines*

Small White Wave* x 5

Mottled Pug

Brindled Pug x 3

Pebble Hook-tip x 2

Common Carpet x 2

Pale Tussock x 3

Purple Bar x 2

Clay Triple-lines x 2

Nut-tree Tussock x 4

Brown Silver-lines* x 2

Red-green Carpet

Small Waved Umber x 2

Water Carpet

Scalloped Hazel x 2

Currant Pug*

Treble-bar

Marbled Brown* x 6

Common White Wave

Coxcomb Prominent x 2

Silver-ground Carpet*

White Ermine
Pale Prominent

Flame Shoulder x 2

Oak Nycteoline

Scorched Carpet x 2

Least Black Arches x 2

Flame Carpet x 2

Brimestone x 5

Red Twin-spot Carpet x 4

Great Prominent x 10

Green Carpet x 16

Pretty Chalk Carpet

Waved Umber* x 2
White-pinion Spotted* x 7

Apologies for the poor shots, they were very much done on the spur of the moment.

Our late night visitor...

Waved Umber

Small White Wave

Pretty Chalk Carpet

White-pinion Spotted

Pebble Hook-tip

Pale Tussock

Oak Nycteoline

The Mocha

Marbled Brown

Great Prominent

Green Carpet

Coxcomb Prominent

Clay Triple-lines

Cockchafers

The full trap!

1st May

Managed a quick trapping session in between a heavy rain shower which produced reasonable results. Highlight was a very possible Oak-tree Pug that is being confirmed by the CR as I write this...

1x Oak-tree Pug (awaiting confirmation)
2x Brindled Pug
1x Double-striped Pug
1x Waved Umber
1x Twenty-plume Moth
1x Brown-house Moth
1x Shuttled-shaped Dart

The stunning Waved Umber...

Shuttle-shaped Dart...

Bill