All is Rosy in the Garden

Just a couple of weeks to go in my garden, and I thought it may be worth trapping last night despite a clear start, as it was forecast to cloud over.  Luckily, it did, and the temp at dawn was quite mild.  As a result, I got what was probably my best catch ever at this time of year in terms of individual numbers.  97 moths of 17 macro species included four year ticks, so I'm just five away from making it 200 for the year.  Best was a couple of Rosy Rustic, which I've only seen a couple of times before, both in the garden a few years ago.

15th September:
Macros:
47 Large Yellow Underwing
8 Square-spot Rustic
7 Setaceous Hebrew Character
6 Snout
5 Silver Y
5 Angle Shades
4 Common Marbled Carpet
3 Lesser Yellow Underwing
3 Light Emerald
2 Rosy Rustic NFY
1 Brimstone (becomes the most frequent garden species this year, seen on 50% of trapping nights)
1 Burnished Brass
1 Brindled Green NFY
1 Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
1 Lunar Underwing NFY
1 Common Wainscot NFY
1 Grey Pine Carpet

Micros:
6 Light Brown Apple Moth
3 Blastobasis adustella
2 Celypha lacunana
1 Cydia splendana
1 Eudonia mercurella

Rosy Rustic

Common Wainscot

Brindled Green

Lunar Underwing

Autumnal Fant-Rustic!

I have hardly trapped at all this autumn. We had a couple of warm nights a fortnight ago, but due to various reasons, I could not trap, which was rather frustrating. I managed to trap once last week, but the result was fairly poor, with just one true autumn species, a Lunar Underwing. However, with the weather taking a turn for the warm, I trapped last night and it was a brilliant haul. I got almost all the autumnal species I expect to get during the period in one go! Best was a brand new species to me, of a gorgeous Autumnal Rustic, which was much smaller than I expected.

September 26th:

12 Large Yellow Underwing

5 Lunar Underwing

3 Snout

3 Common Marbled Carpet

3 Svennson's Copper Underwing

3 Copper Underwing

2 Large Ranunculus NFY

1 Brimstone

1 Square-spot Rustic

1 Grey Pine Carpet

1 Spruce Carpet

1 Oak Nycteoline

1 Setaceous Hebrew Character

1 Pink-barred Sallow NFY

1 Black Rustic NFY

1 Barred Sallow NFY

1 Brindled Green NFY

1 Autumnal Rustic NFG

Pink-barred Sallow

Lunar Underwings (variation)

Large Ranunculus

Brindled Green

Black Rustic

Barred Sallow

Autumnal Rustic

A Mega Autumn Haul!

I hope my esteemed colleauges are taking advantage of the current weather, cause I don't think it could be better for mothing in October! I will have to take back what I said yesterday about it not getting any better, because it has! Depsite the night starting off clear, the cloud rolled in, and I got an incredibly large haul of 33 moths of 20 species! These included a brand new species, as well as a couple of other year ticks, and several species that are very late(maybe something to do with the poor September weather?).

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8th October:

5 Common Marbled Carpet (including one very fresh individual)

4 Black Rustic

3 Large Yellow Underwing

2 Yellow-line Quaker

2 Brindled Green NFY

2 Chestnut

1 Green Carpet

1 Grey Pine Carpet

1 Silver Y

1 Red-line Quaker

1 Barred Sallow

1 Sallow NFY

1 Lesser Yellow Underwing

1 Light Emerald

1 Grey Shoulder-knot

1 Willow Beauty

1 Large Ranunculus

1 Spruce Carpet

1 Blair's Shoulder-knot NFG

Brindled Green (grey form)

Sallow

Blair's Shoulder-knot
A dark Chestnut
The same with a normal Chestnut

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