Friday 12 May 2017

30th April

Chepstow Town (south)

Went out food shopping this morning. Nothing surprising about that, a normal weeks routine you say and quite right, but things are just not that simple as that.
I'm not sure about anybody else out there but I tend to take my camera with me the majority of the time in case you might see something.
It proved a good idea today for just as I was coming out of the store perched on the floor was a Lime Hawk-moth.
I immediately went back to car and got a moth pot and rescued it from potential trampling feet because it was near the exit door.
It had obviously got attracted to the overnight store lights. Maybe upon the store opening up it had been on the main door and got displaced onto the ground and remained there ever since.

Lime Hawk-moth

It is a nationally common moth supposedly but I'm finding it quite elusive even though I'm surrounded by suitable habitat for it, just two sightings in the last few years.
Would be interested in finding out if many of you moth'ers out there see them often?

Waiting for control tower to OK take off

4 comments:

  1. I hardly ever get them in my Cardiff moth trap despite lime being the street trees of choice in my area. I sometimes see the larvae coming down off the trees to pupate, in late summer, but I think the problem for them is finding somewhere suitable to pupate. They reach the pavement at the base of the trunk and then have a very hazardous journey to find a suitable pupation site. I have seen a few larvae which have been trampled on the pavements.

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  2. Thanks George for your comments.
    I suppose with increased traffic and footfall within the public areas around Cardiff is going to make it extremely difficult for them.
    I guess more rural habitat should be better but I'm yet to find one away from a urban situation, odd.

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  3. Thanks George for your comments.
    I suppose with increased traffic and footfall within the public areas around Cardiff is going to make it extremely difficult for them.
    I guess more rural habitat should be better but I'm yet to find one away from a urban situation, odd.

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  4. We've caught a few in the lime-rich Wye Valley woods over the last few years, while trapping for Scarce Hook-tip.

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