Sunday 27 September 2015

Elephant Hawkmoth - Ochrwyth

Only just avoided treading on this caterpillar.  It was sunning itself and only started to move when I blocked off the rays to take this photograph.

Friday 25 September 2015

Lighthouse Park

After sitting out on the patio with the MV every night this week and recording quite low numbers of moths tonights forecast of NNE5mph clear skies and temps dropping out around 9° plus a very large bright moon. I knew it would be another hard going session around the trap. The first couple of hours saw just 12 moths land in, on or around the MV.. I started to question myself as to how long i would sit out when this Mallow dropped in.

2 days ahead of my last years record of the species.


Monday 21 September 2015

17th September

Chepstow
Had trouble sleeping overnight to the point where I just had to get up. Decided I would take a casual walk through the town very early this morning.
A few moths were still around including this one.
I mistook it to be Acrobasis advenella at first, a faded one at that.
After downloading my camera onto the computer when I had got back from my walk I started to realise it was something else entirely.
A quick look through the micro book I have and Nephopterix angustella looked favourite.
The raised set of blackened scales seems to be a good pointer.

Sent off a few pictures to Sam Bosanquet and he agreed.
He also added 'just a handful of records' exists for this micro in Vice county 35.
Having a look at the on-line MMBG micro maps for this species, shows only 2 squares have been shaded.

Just been on the NBN Gateway map for this species and I could not see hardly any recorded 'red dots' for the whole of Wales.
Does anyone know if many records exist for species in Wales at all?


1465 Nephopterix angustella -Spindle Knot-horn



Saturday 12 September 2015

National Moth Night, 11th September 2015

Fiona Illing, Sheila Dupe and myself went to Parc Tredelerch, Cardiff, Monmouthshire last night. We ran a microphone stand MV on a white sheet and did some sugaring. A fisherman asked if we were after the hawkmoths that like the tobacco plants? He had read about NMN in the paper. I said we would be very lucky to catch a Convolvulus Hawkmoth! We knew the rain was coming and only had a hour or two trapping.
We recorded 34 moths of 13 species to MV: Square spot Rustic 7, Large YUW 6, Small Square Spot 4, Dusky Thorn 3, Willow Beauty 1, Setaceous Hebrew Character 3, Lesser YUW 2, Broad Borderd YUW 1, Angle Shades 1, Vine's Rustic 3, Brimstone 2, Dark Arches 1 and Light Emerald 1. In addition there were 1 Angle Shades, 2 Square Spot Rustics and 1 Small Square Spot to the sugar.
The rain became more persistant at 9.30hrs so we packed up.
I also ran the MV at Redhouse Barns on a timer switch. This morning I recorded 69 moths of just 11 species - all the usual suspects, but as I was putting the egg trays back in the trap I noticed a small Geometer on it's back at the bottom. I flipped in over and was delighted to see a Mocha. This is the 1st one I've ever seen in 20 years of moth trapping!