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

 

No mercury Vapour, but good old trap delivers

Another excellent weather night produced a load of new for the years in the garden. Best however, was the garden tick of a Vapourer. I thought I might get this in the garden at some point, but I expected it to be a fly-by during the day, perhaps whilst holding a vigil at the Buddleia for Humming-bird Hawk (which I have been doing a bit recently, without success so far).

July 27th:
13 Dark Arches
10 Large Yellow Underwing
7 Common Rustic sp.
6 Dunbar
4 Uncertain
4 Shuttle-shaped Dart
3 Heart and Dart
2 Willow Beauty
2 Antler NFY
1 Riband Wave
1 Vapourer NFG
1 Small Rivulet NFY
1 Buff Ermine
1 Rosy Footman NFY
1 Scalloped Oak
1 Light Arches
1 July Highflyer
1 Rosy Minor NFY
1 Rustic
1 Smoky Wainscot
1 Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
1 Clay
1 Spectacle NFY
1 Double Square-spot

Rosy Minor

Spectacle

Rosy Footman

Antler

Vapourer

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!

This and that

Since a malware attack two weeks ago, I've been having all sorts of probs with my computer. I had to reinstall Windows XP. Now my new firewall won't let me view photos on this site. This is a rambling explanation of why I haven't posted recently.
But I've disabled the firewall in order to post a few photos of recent sightings. I have been trying to photo a few micros as this is the last year of fieldwork for the Surrey micro atlas. They are tricky to photograph but some of the larger ones (c 1cm in length) are quite attractive in close-up. Of course, plenty more are just dull brown things which you wouldn't look twice at. So here are a few random photos from late June -- early July.
barred straw

spectacle

Hedya salicella

yellow-tail

scarce footman

Brown house moth (Hofmannophila pseudospretella)

small angle shades

varied coronet

Eucosma cana

Pyhcita roborella

Recurvaria leucatella (a Notable (b) = scarce moth)

No puns, just great moths

Sorry about the lack of updates, I have been having camera problems.

I had a bit of a disaster three nights ago when someone managed to jog the plug loose for the trap, so it probably only ran for a couple of hours. As a result I got seven moths. The next night was much better, with a very fresh Light Brocade amongst the catch, but nothing else of particular note. Although it was nice to get my second records of Dwarf and Foxglove Pugs.

Agreggate for 2nd and 3rd June:

7 Heart and Dart

3 Common Marbled Carpet

2 Treble Lines

2 Pale Tussock

2 Common Pug

2 Peppered Moth

1 Orange Footman

1 Spectacle

1 Spruce Carpet

1 Shuttle-shaped Dart

1 Green Carpet

1 Light Brocade

1 Dwarf Pug

1 Clouded-bordered Brindle

1 Red Twin-spot Carpet

1 Scalloped Hazel

1 Foxglove Pug

Spectacle

Light Brocade

Last night was a lot better, with 35 moths of 23 species. Unfortunately, the star moth was faded. When I first found my first ever Satin Lutestring, it was outside the trap in the morning, and it was in pristine condition. I just potted it, but did not ID it as I had to go to work. When I got home, I found it floundering on its back, with lots of scales littering the pot! I hope I still got the ID right. Also among the highlights were new-for-year Small Seraphim, Grey Pine Carpet, Light Emerald, a Minor (probably Marbled), and my second ever Ingrailed Clay.

4th June:

5 Heart and Dart

4 Treble Lines

3 Common Marbled Carpet

3 Common Pug

2 Mottled Pug

1 Buff-tip

1 Pale Prominent

1 Orange Footman

1 Flame Shoulder

1 Grey Pine Carpet NFY
1 May Highflyer

1 Light Emerald NFY

1 Small Phoenix

1 Flame Carpet

1 Small Seraphim NFY

1 White Ermine

1 Coxcomb Prominent

1 Oak-tree Pug

1 Green Carpet

1 Pale Tussock

1 Minor sp. NFY

1 Ingrailed Clay NFY

1 Satin Lutestring NFG

Satin Lutestring

Ingrailed Clay