Early October catch-up

Following last weeks cooler temperatures, things calmed down sufficiently enough (for this time of  year) to put the trap out a few times.

7th October - 5 moths of 5 species! November Moth was new for the year, but has been in every trap since!

8th October - much warmer and cloudier and despite putting my rain sheet over the trap site, it didn't rain. I managed 22 moths of 13 species which I wasn't disappointed with, but if I hadn't put the rainguard over the trap maybe there would've been more! Juniper Carpet was a great new find. Also had a Shuttle-shaped Dart which I'd not caught since August, and my second Flounced Chestnut.




9th October - Another smaller catch as it was quite gusty, 9 moths of 8 species - but Brick was new for the year and my second Rusty-dot Pearl turned up.

12th October - Another better night, still and fairly cloudy. 20 moths of 13 species. The best moth for autumn graced the trap - a cracking fresh Feathered Thorn! Also got four Green-brindled Crescent (although having looked through W&T I suspect two of these which were much smaller may have been Brindled Green). Of course I only photographed the two that looked better, which are definitely GBC! Another surprise was my second Oak Nycteoline of the year. Finally, I had this worn micro. Any ideas would be gratefully received!










13th October - 13 moths of 9 species. No new species for the year or October but still a good selection of species including Red-green and Juniper Carpets, Pink-barred Sallow and Green-brindled Crescent

The night of a thousand stars

This lovely warm weather is providing all of us moth-ers with plenty of interesting catch results! As it looked good all week I decided to do Tues/Weds/Thurs with Thursday being a slight difference in that I put out the 15W BLB lamp with the 22W CFL clip-on. This seems to have done the trick as I recorded no less than 6 new species!! And some cracking ones they were too...

First came a couple of micros to the white sheet - Tinea semifulvella (left) and Apple Leaf Miner (right)



And then some more autumnal species that for some reason I didn't catch last year, but I suppose that could be down to either trap position (it's now located underneath a mixed hawthorn hedge, as opposed to the middle of the lawn) or the weather? All these moths were in pristine condition. The Yellow-line Quaker (left), Red-line Quaker (right) and the fabulous Green-brindled Crescent (below right)

The last new species for the garden came whilst photographing the catch. I took out a Red-green Carpet that had it's wings folded up as it had just come out of the fridge. I managed to get it to stand on the wall (where I take my photos) whilst still in the pot. I left it for five minutes to relax and sure enough it flopped its wings flat. I took the pot covering it off to take it's portrait...and it was an Autumn Green Carpet!! Brilliant what you miss the first time round when you're rushing to get the trap emptied! EDIT: I've been corrected by the guys at BGM, and this is in fact a Red-green Carpet.