The Closing Stages

I need to take any oppurtunity to trap at the moment, so a cloudy night was enough to stick the light on, despite the temp being around 11 only.  That considered, it was not a bad haul, and it included two year ticks.  Just two more to go to get to 200! 

21st September:
16 Large Yellow Underwing
6 Common Marbled Carpet
3 Lesser Yellow Underwing
2 Large Ranunculus NFY
1 Light Emerald
1 Silver Y
1 Sallow NFY
1 Lunar Underwing
1 Rosy Rustic
1 Square-spot Rustic
1 Burnished Brass
1 Setaceous Hebrew Character
1 Grey Pine Carpet

Large Ranunculus

Sallow

Spot On + Crescent and Correct

SPOT ON

Despite the brilliant-looking conditions in recent days, trapping in the garden has been largely disappointing, particularly for numbers. There has been a little bit of quality here and there however. Not least a brand new species to me on the 2nd, a Brown-spot Pinion.

Aggregate list for 30th September, 2nd and 3rd October:

8 Common Marbled Carpet

6 Large Yellow Underwing

4 Sallow NFY

3 Spruce Carpet

3 Yellow-line Quaker NFY

2 Grey Pine Carpet

2 Lesser Yellow Underwing

2 Large Ranunculus

2 Lunar Underwing

1 Snout

1 Svensson's Copper Underwing

1 Copper Underwing

1 Barred Sallow

1 Garden Carpet

1 Red-line Quaker NFY

1 Brown-spot Pinion NFG

1 Chestnut

Yellow-line Quaker

Sallow

Grey Pine Carpet

Brown-spot Pinion

CRESCENT AND CORRECT

Last night was Paul Wheeler's last Pewley Down session of the year, and with the forecast for complete cloud, we were hopeful. As it turned out, the cloud cover was quite thin, and often broken, so as a result numbers were a little disappointing. But, some top quality was caught, including a lifer for me, a stunning Green-brindled Crescent. Also lots of variable Beaded Chestnut (only my second sighting).

4th October, Pewley Down:

Large Ranunculus

Beaded Chestnut

Autumnal Rustic

Red-green Carpet

Barred Sallow

Lunar Underwing

Willow Beauty

Yellow Shell

Brown-spot Pinion

Silver Y

Common Marbled Carpet

Green-brindled Crescent*

Snout

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Dark Sword-grass

Burnished Brass

Beaded Chestnut (pale example)

Brown-spot Pinion

Green-brindled Crescent

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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"Foreign" leps

I've not had much time/energy for mothing the last couple of weeks, with little worth reporting. I just had a look down the garden (checking out buddleia and sedums and house-lights). Grand total of 5 square-spot rustics and 5 Emmelina monodactyla.

Before that I had a week in the Lake District. I know this site is about Surrey moths and butterflies but I thought I'd put up a couple of photos from there (below). The Devon carpet turned out to be a first record for VC70 (North Cumbria).

sallow

Devon carpet

dark green fritillary (rather worn!)

anomalous

barred chestnut