Dotted Chestnut, North Surrey

Caught this Dotted Chestnut back on the 7th May in the garden actinic trap, one of the few species that I've longed for every autumn/spring, but have never succeeded in finding, to the point where I'd given up all hope of catching one. It's always nice to stare into the trap and find a new moth, but I was extra chuffed when I lifted up an egg box to the sight of this enigmatic species, confined to woodland and heathland in parts of southern England.

Makes all the pointless early mornings sifting through Common Quakers and Hebrew Characters worth it!

The usual suspects

Nothing unexpected in the trap last night, well, not moth-wise anyway.  A queen buff-tail bumble bee rather took me by surprise though!

However, there were a lot of moths!

11 Small Brindled Beauty
6 March Moth
6 Pale Brindled Beauty
3 Spring Usher
3 Small Quaker
3 Chestnut
2 Dotted Chestnut
1 Common Quaker

  

Dotted Chestnut

Queen bee (Buff Tail)

And a few more....

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Having only started mothing last August, I still have the joy and expectation of finding a moth in my trap that I've not come across before, and this morning did not disappoint.

Amongst the Pale Brindled Beauty, Small Brindled Beauty, Spring Usher and Chestnuts I found a beautiful Dotted Chestnut.  A new find does give such a thrill!

Thursley comes up trumps

Myself and David Gardner trapped at Thursley Common last night. One reason was because the last time we tried the site on 16th June, the weather was very cold. In fact, we almost got more moths tonight! The weather was good, with some cloud cover, and the final totals were encouraging. The main reason for the session however was to look for the rare Southern Chestnut, which is a RDB species, and occurs just over the border in Sussex. Unsurprisingly, we did not find that, but we still had a good evening. We managed one lifer for me in the shape of a couple of gorgeous Dotted Chestnut.

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9th October, Thursley Common:

13 Chestnut

12 Yellow-line Quaker

3 Sallow

3 Pink-barred Sallow

3 Barred Sallow

2 Red-line Quaker

2 Dotted Chestnut*

1 Satellite

1 Brick

1 Black Rustic

1 Pine Carpet

1 Feathered Thorn

1 Dusky Thorn

1 Lesser Yellow Underwing
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Satellite

Dotted Chestnut

Introducing me!

engrailed (above)

dotted chestnut (below)


Agonopterix alstromeriana


powdered quaker


emperor moth




yellow-horned





peacock butterfly

Lunar marbled brown

I'm Ken Noble. I live in the South-eastern corner of Surrey, under the Gatwick flight-path. (Wasn't the volcano a mercy?!)

I run a Robinson 125W trap but usually switch it off at bedtime, so I don't get the enormous catches that some people do. I started mothing about six years ago and my garden list is over 520 species now (I'm nearly up to 600 for Surrey). My main claim to fame was adding a tiny micro to the Surrey list - Argyresthia cupressella -though to be honest I wouldn't have known what it was if Graham Collins hadn't IDed it!

Trapping has been poor the last week or two because of cold nights, strong winds and lack of cloud cover. Last night I only had two lunar marbled browns, for instance. As this is my first post I'll put up one or two recent photos taken in my garden.

I enjoy photography - some of my efforts can be found on Mark Elvin's brilliant website: http://www.wildlife-galleries.co.uk/gallery2/main.php