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

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!

A fantastic feline find

While I was at Dawney's, I had my trap running at home, at the cloudy skies produced the goods. Amongst 26 species was two new for the garden aand three further year ticks. The new garden moths were a Currant Pug, and a Poplar Kitten (at least I am pretty sure it is, although a little late).
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9th August:

13 Large Yellow Underwing

12 Common Rustic

11 Shuttle-shaped Dart

10 Dunbar

5 Copper Underwing

3 Vine's Rustic

2 LBBYU

2 Turnip

1 Willow Beauty

1 Riband Wave

1 Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing NFY

1 Small Fan-footed Wave

1 Red Twin-spot Carpet

1 Garden Carpet

1 Small Phoenix

1 Svensson's Copper Underwing

1 Lychnis NFY

1 Peppered Moth

1 Six-striped Rustic NFY

1 Poplar Kitten NFG

1 Currant Pug NFG

1 Rosy Minor

1 Scalloped Hook-tip

1 Flame Shoulder

1 Heart and Dart

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Lychnis
Six-striped Rustic

Currant Pug
Poplar Kitten