Toadflax Brocade at Berrylands Station

It's been a very slow start at Berrylands this year, Oak Beauty on April 9th and Dark Chestnut on April 15th were both station firsts and very welcome they were, but things picked up yesterday with a Brimstone Moth and a Toadflax Brocade, the fifth succesive year I've recorded this species here. The macro year list stands at 12 species but things should really start to pick up from now on

Nick

Moths Abound

As with everyone else, I have been getting lots of Small Quaker, interspersed with all the other moths you would expect to be seeing at this time of year:  Common Quaker, Twin-Spotted Quaker, Chestnuts and Dotted Chestnuts, Hebrew Character, Yellow Horned, March Moth etc etc.  

A few highlights were the nights I got five or six Oak Beauty...that's quite an impressive sight!  A few Early Thorn have arrived and also an early Purple Thorn - usually out around April/May.  A Red-Green carpet has also put in an appearance.

Oak Beauty

Early Thorn

Purple Thorn

Day-Flyers

My partner has spent the last few days here on Wimbledon Common looking for the day-flying Orange and Light Orange Underwing.  The former have been quite abundant around Birch, although flying too high too net.  But a lot of hours spent lurking around a small stand of Aspen finally paid off and he was, through binoculars, able to identify a male Light Orange Underwing by its characteristic comb-toothed antennae when it landed low down in the tree....although unfortunately not low enough to net.  This was reported to our County Recorder, Graham Collins, and he has today confirmed that he will accept this record by virtue of the characteristic antennae.   This is believed to be a first for Wimbledon Common.

Beauty and the Brindled

I got a fantastic catch last night, in near perfect conditions. I got 20 moths of 9 species, which is about the amount I would have to wait till May to get with my old (Actinic) trap. These included two new for the garden. An Oak Beauty and a Small Brindled Beauty (seemingly scarce round here) were those in question. These are ticks 255 and 256 on my garden macro list.

.

28th Feb:

7 Common Quaker

5 Small Quaker

2 Hebrew Character NFY

1 Small Brindled Beauty NFG

1 March Moth

1 Spring Usher

1 Pale Brindled Beauty

1 Oak Beauty NFG

1 Clouded Drab

....and no Chestnuts!

.

I also got this Agonopteryx which I would appreciate an ID for (Heracliana?):

Hebrew Character

Small Brindled Beauty

Oak Beauty

No Sloe but quite a show

I went on my first field trapping session of the year last night, as it had been a hot day. I visited Bookham Common with Paul Wheeler in the hope of Sloe Carpet. There's wonderful habitat there, with massive Blackthorn thickets everywhere, too early for the Nightingales too! Despite this, we had a great night, and in just two hours (it got cold under the clear sky very quickly) we managed 19 macro moths, and a load of micros too. These included species that I had not expected to be out yet, and three new species for me. A Small Brindled Beauty was quite late, we had an Early Tooth-striped, and two Red Chestnuts. We also discovered some Brown Hairstreak eggs that had been marked by someone with some string. Quite a night!

6th April, Bookham Common:

9 Water Carpet

7 Common Quaker

6 Scorched Carpet

3 Clouded Drab

3 Frosted Green

2 Small Quaker

2 Red Chestnut*

2 Shoulder Stripe

2 Brindled Pug

2 Hebrew Character

1 Early Thorn

1 Streamer

1 Satellite

1 Engrailed

1 Small Brindled Beauty*

1 Oak Beauty

1 Early Tooth-striped*

1 Nut-tree Tussock

1 Oak-tree Pug

Water Carpet

Small Brindled Beauty

Shoulder Stripe

Scorched Carpet

Red Chestnut

Oak-tree Pug

Oak Beauty

Early Tooth-striped

More early moths

This mild spell has clearly got the moths out - I've had one or two that I wouldn't normally expect to see in February.


small quaker


small brindled beauty


shoulder stripe



oak beauty


larva of large yellow underwing (Noctua pronuba)

common quaker