Mothing update

The good weather had to end and last monday after I did my very successful butterfly survey, the heavens opened at about 9PM and didn't close til about 2PM the next day. I took advantage of the gap inbetween showers and cycled down the river to Netherfield Lagoons to see if any good birds had decided to turn up. I couldnt stay long so just had a swift walk round the deep pit, past the slurry lagoon and wader scrapes, but in the 90 minutes or so I had there, I racked up about 40 species. Best of all was a Hobby, the first I've seen this year, which was seen flying low along the banks of the deep pit, obviously looking for Dragonflies. No waders apart from a couple of Lapwings, with the only bird of note on the wader scrape being a Grey Wag. 

Its moulting season for ducks too, so the slurry lagoon was a hotbed of confusion, with loads of distant brown-looking ducks, but I did count 50 or so Gadwall, including a female with about 7 or 8 young ones. Winter must be round the corner too as I saw a drake Wigeon knocking about too.

That evening there were flash floods around the city, with rain lashing down for about 20 minutes, but causing buses, supermarkets and pubs to be under a few inches of water. It stopped all of a sudden and ended up being a relatively dry, muggy evening, so I put the moth trap on. However, the rain must have put them off as the numbers were down somewhat on the last few outings.

I only got one new macro, a Light arches. 

But the micro numbers were good, and I got this Stunning Phlyctaenia coronata.

This Emmelina monodactyla

and this, a Cnephasia spp. One which requires dissection to get to species level... i let it go with its balls intact

 

On Friday I got the trap on again, and when I went round to check it Saturday morning I wasn't expecting much, as it was a little chillier than normal and there was a slight breeze. However it ended up being one of my best catches, especially for new species caught. Unfortunately I cropped the pictures on my phone and they ended up coming out a bit rubbish. 

New for the garden included this Silver-Y

Prob my favourite so far, this Sallow Kitten

Lime speck pug

Dingy footman

Dun-bar

Copper Underwing

I got 6 micros too, one which still needs an ID, and this big micro, Mother of Pearl

I've been getting a few Wainscot species the last few weeks which I initially thought were smoky wainscots. I've since decided they were southern wainscots, and I caught one this week, right next to a smoky wainscot... Good to compare and thats 2 more for the garden.

Left - southern wainscot
Right - Smoky wainscot

So thats now 63 moths for the garden, I've got one more July trap to do and thats tonight. Looking forward to it :)