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

The Big Butterfly Count starts today.

It’s a nationwide survey aimed at helping to assess the health of our environment. in much the same way as the Big Garden Bird Watch organised by the RSPB, Butterfly Conservation in conjunction with M&S have orgainsed the Big Butterfly Count to run between July 24th and August 1st 2010 and you can join in.

All you have to do is spend 15 minutes in a suitable location – which could be your garden or a local park – noting down all of the butterflies and moths that you see and then report back with your findings. They have a handy butterfly ID chart of the most likely species that you will see and a website explaining all about the Big Butterfly Count.

Hopefully we’ll get some nice sunny days this week in which case Morgan and I will do a count in the garden and a count in the dunes. Le us know what you find in your garden.

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

As promised here’s a photo of the Yellow-tail moth I had in the trap last night. I’m expecting more of these in the near future.

Yellow-tail Moth

And here’s why it’s called a Yellow-tail.

Yellow-tail