Last Nights Moths – Rosy Rustic

The moth trap went out last night. No rain, moderate winds and a minimum temperature of 15.3ºC resulted in 22 different species, 135 moths in total and one new species to me. Nothing too exciting but quite a large number of Small Square Spots.

• 22 x Silver Y
• 4 x Archer’s Dart
• 13 x Setaceous Hebrew Character
• 1 x Yellow-tail
• 2 x Common Marbled Carpet
• 4 x Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet
• 1 x Willow Beauty
• 14 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 1 x Dingy Footman
• 2 x Purple Bar
• 3 x Dark Sword Grass
• 6 x Flounced Rustic
• 9 x Flame Shoulder
• 35 x Small Square Spot
• 1 x Sallow Kitten
• 1 x White-line Dart
• 6 x Dark Arches
• 1 x Gold Spot
• 4 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x July Highflyer
• 1 x Antler Moth
• 3 x Rosy Rustic*

Rosy Rustic

Here’s a new moth that I missed from my moth trapping the other night. It’s a new garden record for  me, a ‘Small Argent & Sable’.

The garden list keeps growing!

Small Argent & Sable

I put the moth trap out again last night and had quite a catch. With light winds most of the night, temperatures staying above 13ºC and light cloud cover it was perfect conditions.

As well as the usual suspects there were a number of new garden records as well, with close to 200 moths and 38 different species. I’m still working on the identification of a few of them.

• 2 x Rosy Minor
• 7 x Antler Moth
• 49 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 4 x Brimstone Moth
• 3 x July Highflyer
• 4 x Common Carpet
• 1 x Willow Beauty
• 1 x Cloaked Minor
• 14 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 24 x Flame Shoulder
• 3 x Yellow-tail
• 3 x Tawny Speckled Pug
• 4 x Drinker
• 3 x Least Yellow Underwing
• 1 x Magpie*
• 3 x Dingy Footman
• 1 x Purple Bar
• 16 x Dark Arches
• 5 x Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet
• 6 x Small Square Spot
• 1 x Scalloped Oak
• 2 x Lime-speck Pug
• 1 x Garden Tiger
• 5 x Setaceous Hebrew Character
• 3 x White-line Dart
• 12 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 4 x Smoky Wainscot
• 1 x Clouded Border
• 5 x Flounced Rustic
• 2 x Archer’s Dart
• 1 x Garden Carpet
• 1 x Silver Y
• 1 x Clay
• 1 x Six-striped Rustic*
• 1 x Lychnis*
• 1 x Lesser Broad-border Yellow Underwing*
• 1 x Mother of Pearl*
• 1 x Ringed China Mark*
• 1 x As yet unidentifed- Pyrausta despicata

Here are the new ones.

Weather and days away mean that we haven’t put the moth trap out much lately but I thought I’d risk it last night. It ended up being fairly windy but we still had quite a few moths and some new ones too.

Here’s the list from last night.

• 1 x July Highflyer
• 10 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 1 x Tawny Speckled Pug*
• 3 x White-line Dart
• 3 x Dark Arches
• 1 x Silver Y
• 1 x Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet
• 4 x Drinker
• 6 x Smoky Wainscot
• 1 x Rosy Minor
• 1 x Scalloped Oak
• 4 x Flame Shoulder
• 4 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Setaceous Hebrew Character
• 2 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 4 x Small Square Spot
• 1 x Mullein Wave*
• 1 x Flounced Rustic*

Here are the new ones.

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Nothing too exciting in the moth trap last night. A reappearance of the Dark-barred and Red Twin-spot Carpets, both of which have two flight periods. An early one in mid April-June and a later in late July-August. I haven’t seen these for a while but we had both again last night.

Otherwise it was pretty much business as usual with a similar catch to the past few attempts. There was one new species though, a Lesser Yellow Underwing.

Here’s the full list:

• 2 x Flame Shoulder
• 4 x Scarce Footman
• 3 x Yellow-tail
• 5 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 12 x Dark Arches
• 4 x White-line Dart
• 1 x Lackey
• 16 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 13 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Bright-line Brown-eye
• 3 x Rosy Minor
• 8 x Smoky Wainscot
• 1 x Drinker
• 5 x Scalloped Oak
• 4 x Garden Tiger
• 2 x Cloaked Minor
• 1 x Silver Y
• 2 x Lesser yellow Underwing
• 1 x Garden Carpet
• 1 x Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet
• 1 x Red Twin-spot Carpet
• 1 x Clay
• 1 x Elephant Hawkmoth

Nothing too exciting in the moth trap last night, the only new moth was an Oak Eggar.

Oak Eggar

Here’s the full list from last night:

• 1 x Cloaked Minor
• 11 x Scarce Footman
• 2 x Yellow-tail
• 4 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 3 x Dark Arches
• 4 x White-line Dart
• 1 x Lackey
• 16 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 5 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Bright-line Brown-eye
• 6 x Rosy Minor
• 2 x Dingy Footman
• 4 x Smoky Wainscot
• 2 x Drinker
• 1 x Scalloped Oak
• 2 x Riband Wave
• 1 x Ruby Tiger
• 1 x Oak Eggar*
• 2 x Garden Tiger
• 1 x Buff Ermine
• 1 x Single-dotted Wave
• 1 x Tawny Shears

Thought I’d put the moth trap out again last night as it looked set to be dry and we all had the day off today so would have plenty of time to go through it.

I sat with it for a little while at dusk, but then got up again at 4am before it was light and went out to investigate. I was lovely being out in the garden at that time in the morning with nothing but the bats, moths and other creatures of the night as company. It was a lovely still morning, perfect for sitting there watching and listening to the dawn.

• 2 x Cabbage Moth
• 2 x Heart and Dart
• 9 x Garden Tiger
• 2 x Rosy Minor
• 4 x White-line Dart
• 2 x July Highflyer
• 1 x Poplar Hawkmoth
• 36 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 9 x Dark Arches
• 3 x Scarce Footman
• 1 x Smoky Wainscot
• 18 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Rustic
• 3 x Lackey
• 1 x Pebble Prominent
• 2 x Antler Moth
• 1 x Drinker
• 1 x Foxglove Pug
• 1 x Common Carpet
• 2 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 1 x Flame Shoulder
• 1x Double Square spot*

Not that exciting but still quite a few moths and lots of lovely Garden Tigers

Just before bed time the rain eased, so seeing as I was due to be looking after Morgan all day I thought I’d put the moth trap out so that we could go through them this morning.

It wasn’t a huge catch, but there was enough to keep us busy and a few new ones as well.

• 1 x Bright-line Brown-eye
• 1 x Single-dotted Wave
• 4 x Heart and Dart
• 1 x Lime-speck Pug
• 6 x Garden Tiger
• 4 x Rosy Minor
• 2 x White-line Dart
• 2 x Chinese Character
• 3 x July Highflyer
• 1 x Dingy Footman
• 1 x Riband Wave
• 1 x Poplar Hawkmoth
• 1 x Flame
• 18 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 11 x Dark Arches
• 3 x Scarce Footman
• 1 x Red Twin-spot Carpet
• 2 x Smoky Wainscot
• 6 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 2 x Uncertain
• 1 x Common Wainscot
• 3 x Scalloped Oak
• 1 x Rustic
• 1 x Broom Moth

I haven’t had the moth trap out this week as it has been too wet and windy. We did trap on Friday night in the hills above Talybont, and as I don’t want to miss too much I put the trap out last night despite the forecast of rain.

I went out to the trap after dark. The wind had dropped and there was loads of activity so it was looking good for a decent catch in the morning. However, the forecast was for more wind and then rain from about 3am onwards. The forecast was spot on at 3am the wind filled in from the SW and was soon up to 20 knots, The rain started in earnest too so I got out of bed and put the trap under a chair to shelter it a bit.

I was back up at 6.30am when the rain was really heavy and brought the trap in. I then had to wait for Morgan to wake up before I could investigate its contents, which we did together. Once again it was a fairly good catch with 94 moths and over 30 species.

Here’s the list.

• 2 x Swallow-tailed Moth
• 2 x Lackey
• 20 x Dark Arches
• 1 x Least Yellow Underwing*
• 2 x Willow Beauty
• 2 x Flame Shoulder
• 3 x Shuttle-shaped Dart
• 4 x Flame
• 2 x Elephant Hawkmoth
• 5 x Garden Tiger
• 2 x Middle-barred Minor
• 6 x Common Rustic / Lesser Common Rustic agg.
• 1 x Clouded Border*
• 10 x Large Yellow Underwing
• 2 x Bright-line Brown-eye
• 4 x Smoky Wainscot
• 2 x Buff Ermine
• 3 x Riband Wave
• 1 x Heart and Dart
• 1 x Drinker
• 1 x Yellow Shell
• 1 x Oligia sp.
• 2 x True Lover’s Knot
• 1 x Peppered Moth*
• 1 x Common Wainscot
• 1 x Clay
• 3 x July Highflyer
• 2 x Rustic
• 1 x Antler Moth
• 1 x Uncertain
• 1 x Dark / Grey Dagger agg.
• 1 x Fan-foot*
• 1 x Yellow-tail*
• 1x Coast Dart*

I haven’t got photos of all of the new ones yet. The Fan-foot escaped before I could get a photo and I’m still waiting to calm the Yellow-tail and Clouded Border before getting a shot. Here are some of the other new ones though and I’ll post the other later when / if I get a decent shot of them.

We had a Ceredigion Moth Group Meeting this weekend. In total we set up 7 traps in the hills above Talybont and then went through them on Saturday morning. Morgan and couldn’t stay long but we had time to go through the contents of our trap which contained about 23 different species, a few of which were new to us.

Not surprising that we’d get different moths inland surrounded by forestry which is quite a contrast to the open spaces and coastal dunes around us.

The moths in our trap were:

• 1x Light Emerald
• 1x Rustic
• 1x Barred Red*
• 2x Buff Tip
• 13x Large Yellow Underwing
• 2x Scarce Footman
• 1x Clay
• 3x Common Rustic agg.
• 1x Peppered Moth*
• 1x Brimstone Moth
• 1x Buff Arches
• 1x Antler Moth
• 1x Ingrailed Clay*
• 4x Dark Arches
• 2x Straw Dot*
• 1x Green Pug*
• 1x Riband Wave
• 2x Fan Foot*
• 1x July Highflyer
• 1x Mottled Rustic
• 1x Poplar Hawkmoth

I’ve yet to hear what was in the other traps or whether there was anything rare or exciting, but it was good to meet up with everyone and most people seemed impressed with Morgan’s knowledge of moths!