A Broader String to my Bow

The forecast of a nice cloudy night had me scrambling for the trap equipment yesterday evening.  It had probably been just a little too cool during the day for a 'big night', but my garden continued its incredible record of ticks from recent trappings.  Amongst 52 moths of 25 species was another new one to me, and another garden tick, as well as the usual list of year ticks.  The brand new one was a single Broad-barred White, a moth apparently of shingle beaches and waste ground in urban areas.  The garden tick was a Poplar Lutestring, but interestingly, I also got another Figure of 80 (I hate it when that happens, as it just devalues the first record!).  I also saw my first ever intermediate Peppered Moth between the normal and carbonaria forms.

31st May:
11 Common Marbled Carpet
5 Shuttle-shaped Dart
4 Peppered Moth
3 Flame Shoulder
3 Heart and Dart
3 Orange Footman
2 Light Brocade
2 Green Carpet
2 Vine's Rustic
2 Brimstone
1 Pale Tussock
1 Yellow-barred Brindle
1 Silver Y
1 Common Carpet
1 Clouded Silver NFY
1 Common White Wave NFY
1 Figure of 80
1 Small Phoenix NFY
1 Treble Lines
1 Common Pug
1 Spectacle NFY
1 Broad-barred White NFM
1 Garden Carpet
1 Poplar Lutestring NFG
1 Broken-barred Carpet NFY

Broad-barred White

Peppered Moth (intermediate)

Clouded Silver

Small Phoenix

Broken-barred Carpet

Poplar Lutestring

Spectacle

I have been seeing lots of these larval cases of Psyche casta about the place, but imagine my surprise when I found this one inside the lounge!:

Psyche casta

 

Like a Phoenix from the fire

It seems the warm weather is finally here, and with a little cloud cover about, I set the trap last night. Numbers were surprisingly down on the last couple of nights, but the quality was pretty good. Best was my first confirmed Phoenix for the garden, although it got away before I got a photo! A few others new for the year in addition, included a fantastic Buff-tip.



1st June:
17 Heart and Dart
4 Dark Arches
3 Minor sp.
2 Treble Brown Spot NFY
1 Buff-tip NFY
1 Treble Lines
1 Mottled Pug NFY
1 Small Seraphim NFY
1 Bird's Wing
1 Broken-barred Carpet NFY
1 Phoenix NFY
1 Ingrailed Clay
1 Vine's Rustic
1 Grey Pug NFY

Treble Brown Spot

Small Seraphim

probable Grey Pug

Bird's Wing

Broken-barred Carpet

Buff-tip

6th-7th May.. Button down the Hatches!

Last weekend's perfect warm, cloudy and moist weather (wouldn't it be good if every weekend was like that?) were conditions no self-respecting moth would not be flying in, so I had the trap out on the Friday and the Saturday hoping for a bit more variety.

I was rewarded with a huge range of species, most of them micro moths- taking the garden year list passed the big 100.  I've given myself the task of identifying and recording every single micro I catch, for the 'Smaller Moths of Surrey' atlas to be published in early 2012 (I'm starting to regret this decision!). There are some rewards to doing it, and I've already made a few interesting discoveries as a result of paying more attention to them, but I'll post some micro photos in another post.

First off, a few macro moths caught in the garden last weekend...

Buttoned Snout...

It's not called a Buttoned Snout for nothing...

Yellow-barred Brindle...

Mottled Pug- one of the easier pugs to identify thanks to the pale colouring, and visible dagger projections behind the forewing spot...

 Spectacle...

Maiden's Blush thats probably had a run in with a bird...

 Currant Pug...

Broken-barred Carpet...

Heart & Dart...

Pebble Prominent, a real stunner...

I'll most a few micro moth images in the near future once I've sorted through them all.

Happy mothing!

Mega moths!

Wow, what a night, this is what mothing is all about.

I woke up at 4:00 this morning, expecting the trap to be full of water! Amazingly, this area avoided the rain, but got the moths. The final tally of 93 moths of 41 species is massively bigger than anything before, and it took me a couple of hours to sort them out. There were also plenty of Cockchafers and Ichumen wasps in the trap too, and that certainly made the rumage interesting!

The couple of brand new species to me were Broken-barred Carpet and the Seraphim, but there were also loads of new-for-gardens and new-for-years.

5th June:

12 Heart and Dart
9 Common Marbled Carpet
5 Mottled Pug
4 Brown Silver-lines
3 Oak-tree Pug
3 Shuttle-shaped Dart
3 Peppered Moth
3 Flame Shoulder
3 Scorched Wing NFG
3 Green Carpet
3 May Highflyer
3 Common Pug
2 Brimstone
2 Spruce Carpet
2 Minor sp.
2 Heart and Club
2 Buff-tip
2 Pale Prominent
2 Red Twin-spot Carpet
2 Orange Footman
2 Maiden's Blush
2 Light Brocade
2 Flame NFY
2 Treble Lines
1 Small Phoenix
1 probable Grey Pug NFG
1 probable Seraphim NFG
1 Coxcomb Prominent
1 Grey Pine Carpet
1 Small Serphim
1 Alder Moth
1 Coronet NFY
1 V-Pug NFY
1 Spectacle
1 White Ermine
1 Snout NFY
1 Ingrailed Clay
1 Flame Carpet
1 Marbled Brown NFG
1 Broken-barred Carpet NFG
1 Rustic NFY
1 White-spotted Pug

V-Pug

The Flame

Small Seraphim

probable Seraphim

Scorched Wing

Rustic

faded Red Twin-spot Carpet

Minor (probably Marbled)

Marbled Brown (honestly!)

Coronet

Broken-barred Carpet,

Carpet Challenge

I was a bit disappointed with last night's catch considering how warm the day had been. But a clear sky again meant a limited no. of moths (although it didn't seem to stop the cockchafers arriving - there were about a dozen of them).
List as follows:
Orange Footman 2
Flame Carpet 2
Brimstone
Swallow prominent
Blood-vein (nfy)

Clouded Border (nfy)

May highflyer (nfy)

Poplar Hawk-moth
White Ermine
Muslin Moth 2
Broken-barred Carpet (nfy)

Common White Wave (nfy)

Pale Prominent
Celipha lacunana (nfy)

There was also a carpet which I'm struggling to ID. I think it's probably a faded common carpet but could it possibly be the rare wood carpet? I've asked for comments on www.birdforum.net so I'll probably know soon. Edit: It's just been pointed out that it's a Sharp-angled Carpet... Doh!


Today there was a lovely Pyrausta aurata flying around the mint in our garden. But I couldn't get a photo.