Late summer & Early autumn mothing

Catches in my usual trapping garden at my friends house continued on being pretty good, with quality and quantity, which made going to empty the trap each morning quite a drawn out affair, which was nice on the warm late summer mornings that came during the end of august and beginning of september.

Large yellow underwings continued to dominate the numbers up until the beginning of september, by which time over 250 had been caught in the garden, in the space of a few weeks. Lesser yellow underwings, square-spot rustics and copper underwing agg. were all common visitors over these weeks too, but some new and interesting moths also appeared to test my ID skills. More Old Ladies were caught on 2 more sessions but then suddenly stopped appearing.

Typical late august underwing filled egg-box

5 new macros graced my trap on the 28th august, including a colourfull Yellow Shell, an incredibly patterned Lychnis, as well as a Flounced Rustic, Mouse and Vine's Rustic. Only the latter two have returned in later sessions, the others not being seen again. One single Burnished Brass appeared that night too, a stunning moth and only the 2nd i've caught. The last session in august 2 nights later on the 30th produced a little less inspiring trap, with only 2 Common Pug being new.

Burnished Brass

Lychnis

September started very well with some wonderful weather in the first few days of the month, still providing some excellent trapping conditions. I ran my trap twice in the first week of the month and caught well on both occasions, although the evening of the 4th was the best of the two. 22 species were caught which is fantastic for me, and included 3 colourful new macros, Flame Shoulder, Gold Spot and Orange Sallow. I'd been hoping for some of the colourful sallow moths, and the Gold Spot was truly stunning too. I also got 5 new Micros which caused an ID nightmare, but still interesting to find new micros and add to the tally.

Flame Shoulder

Orange Sallow

I had a little break of 10 days before running the trap again, when I had moved into my Girlfriend's parents house for a month to house-sit and look after the dogs. Not great being away from home for that long but the plus point was that we had a garden that I could trap in. I took full advantage and ran the trap 12 times during our time there. The weather at the start of our stay was pretty rubbish so I was getting poor catches, but they increased slightly whenever nights were slightly milder, but it was never a busy trap in the mornings.
The species tally never got very high and there were only ever one or two of each species, but I did catch some new moths for me, including some nice autumn specialities.

Not surprisingly, Large Yellow Underwing was a common inhabitant of the trap, along with Garden Carpet and Lesser Yellow Underwing. Lunar Underwing was new for me on the 16th, but soon became a familiar sight with several in the trap most days. Other new ones for me included Brimstone (new in the garden at least, seen them before) and Common Marbled Carpet.

Brimstone

One of many Lunar underwings

Fresh looking Lesser Yellow Underwing

On the 25th, 3 excellent autumnal moths were in the trap, 2 Blair's Shoulder Knot, a Barred Sallow and a Pink-barred Sallow, following another stunning moth which was found 3 nights earlier, the awesome Dusky Thorn.

Dusky Thorn

Barred Sallow

Pink-barred Sallow

Pair of Blairs

Towards the end of the trapping period, things dropped off a fair bit, but a couple of Silver-Y's kept things interesting. My penultimate evening trapping before leaving for home once again, on the 2nd of October, was successful however, with 11 species found, and moths both inside, outside underneath and around the trap, even under the chair the trap was sat on. In fact most were found outside the trap which was weird. Only two new ones. a Light Emerald and a Gold Triangle, but another Blair's Shoulder Knot, and my first Willow Beauty in a while were nice.

Light Emerald

Gold Triangle

Common Marbled Carpet

Having moved back home, without a garden, I've decided to put an end to my Mothing activities for the year. The possibility of some more nice autumnal species and some winter moths is attractive, but having to trap in my friends garden makes it logistically difficult. Worthwhile in the spring and summer, but if the trap is only likely to have a handful of moths at best, then I don't think its worth it. Its been a good first year as a moth-trapper, I've caught 111 species in my garden trap and have learned loads. I'm looking forward to the spring already.

Dusky Thorn. Nice.

Underwing invasion

Since the poor catches I was getting from the moth trap at the beginning of august, I've been pleasantly surprised to open the lid to a trap full of moths the last couple of times I've run it. Over a week passed between the last time I'd run it and the first decent august catch I got, mainly due to me not being able to access my trap in my friends garden.

On wednesday 21st, I ran the trap on a pleasantly warm evening and was greeted by a good haul of moths in the morning. First things first... Yellow Underwings. I'd begun to trap some of these regularly and had read that they can dominate your trap in the summer months. In this instance I had 43 Large Yellow Underwings in my trap, which constituted 52% of the total catch. I won't grumble though as they are a fascinating species, with much variation in their patterning which means they must be checked anyway, due to possible confusion with similar species. Obviously size rules out all but the Broad-bordered yellow underwing but this has much more distinctive patterning from my experience. These two photos show some of the more contrasting forms which may be found.

Classic patterning, with clear stigmas

More brick-red appearance, another common form

Other than this I had small numbers of other common species, including Lesser Yellow Underwing and Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing. I also caught several Copper Underwings which I had a crack at with seperating to species leve, mainly by looking at the palps and the brightness and contrast of their forewing markings. I made no conclusive decisions but it was interesting to look at these moths in more detail. I'll still record them as aggregates though, to be on the safe side.

Uniformly light palps.... could be Copper rather than svenssons...

I got some new ones for the year, including two macros, Garden Carpet, the first carpet i've trapped in the Garden, which is fitting. I also had my first Square-spot Rustic of the year. More confusing noctuinae. I have also finally invested in the 'micro bible' so can now try to identify some micro-moths without bothering people on twitter and birdforum, or trawling through photos on UKmoths. Borkhausenia fuscescens, Phycitodes binaevella and Pandemis heparana are all micros which were new to me which were ID'd from this source, so it has come in handy already.

Square-spot Rustic

Garden Carpet... in the Garden

The weather was once again perfect on Sunday night, warm, overcast and still, so I put the moth trap on again. I went over at 5.30 am to turn it off and cover it up and put it away somewhere sheltered as I was off bird-ringing. Once I'd finished ringing, I returned and took a look at what I had.

It was another successful night, with some more new ones for me, as well as good numbers of the other regulars. There were only 21 yellow underwing species, 18 of them of the 'Large' variety. The best of the 'Newies' were all residing at the bottom of the trap, saving themselves til last. The species, 'Old Lady' is, I think, a bit of a sought after moth due to it being one of our larger species. I had four tonight which I was impressed with, and they were reasonably docile, allowing me to get a good look at their chunky bodies and large wings.

In addition, I had 4 Shuttle-shaped Dart, which I struggled with, originally mistaking them for The Flame (axylia putris), due to their similar colouration. 

Setaceous hebrew character was also new for me, and was the first moth I pulled out the trap, and instantly recognised it from looking at my books. 

Small Ranunculus was new for me too, and one I was hoping to encounter, as this moth has been trapped locally over the last few years and was once regarded as extinct in the UK. I'm unsure of its current status in Notts, but i'm particularly pleased about it, especially as it nearly escaped the trap too. 

I'm on 87 moth species this year which I'm happy with. The traps on tonight... hoping to crack 100 soon.

Here's another Large Yellow Underwing to wrap up

Moth trapping in august

I've been pretty busy of late, with my birthday bringing many celebrations, my girlfriend preparing for buggering off to mexico for four weeks and me working at Boardmasters festival in Cornwall, so blogging has been neglected a bit.

I've done 3 moth traps since the beginning of august and it is strange how quickly the catch has declined. On the 30th July I caught a reasonable catch of 37 moths of 22 species, not bad for my garden and in fitting with the good catches i'd been getting over the month. However, august hit and with it some slightly cooler nights, and my catches dwindled too. I was catching billions of uncertains and marbled beauties, when all of a sudden, they disappeared, replaced by various yellow underwings and common rustics.

On my birthday I woke up to a quiet trap which included a trio of 'newies':

Broad Bordered Yellow Underwing

Large Fruit Tree Tortrix, note the little grebe in the top right corner

Udea lutealis

all of which are damn fine looking moths, especially the yellow underwing.


Next up was 13 moths of six species on the 6th, very quiet.

Common rustic agg. variant #1

Common rustic agg. variant #2

Lesser Yellow Underwing NFY

and then after being away in cornwall I returned eager to get some more moths in, and was overrun with them, catching a whopping 5 (with about as many escapees).

This did include two more newies though:

Lesser broad bordered yellow underwing (longest name ever, and worn to boot)

agriphila genicula

and a couple of stunning large yellow underwings, well fit, common as they are

.... and another common rustic agg......

Bumper butterflies... again

Previous to doing last weeks survey, I had predicted that there would be an increase in Peacock sightings, due to lots of big healthy looking caterpillars being seen in numerous locations. More have been noted round and about as well as lots more Commas. In fact i went to attenborough briefly last monday afternoon and despite poor weather conditions, butterfly numbers were good, and i saw lots of individuals of both species and managed a few nice shots.

Peacock

Comma

On the Tuesday I went up to the grove for my eighth survey of the year, it was pretty hot but there was a bit of a strong wind and some dark clouds were rolling in towards the end of the survey which turned into a pretty substantial shower which soaked Michelle and I on the cycle home. Despite this the butterflies were still very active and I still got a very respectable 128 individuals of 12 species.

Green-veined white

Whites were still very abundant and again, it was very difficult to clinch ID on a lot of them as they flew past, so I recorded many as just 'White spp.' instead, while still recording down to species level where i could. I ended with approximately 20 each of Large, Small and Green-veined, while a futher 17 were unidentified. Some interesting GV white behaviour was noted which I have read about previously, in which a female which has already copulated was being pestered by an 'interested' male. He was hovering above here scattering his pheromones (or 'lemon-scented love-dust'), but she was sat stock still holding her abdoment erect, which apparently stops any attempts at copulation. Interesting to read about and good to see in the field. I tried to get photographs but they were in a shady location where my attempts all came out blurry and overexposed.

Rejection 

Peacocks had indeed emerged in numbers, and a flowering Buddleia early on in the transect held 11 individuals, which boosted the numbers which ended on 18. One Red admiral was seen on the transect too, and a couple of commas. The second generation of Holly Blues must be emerging too as I saw one of these tiny delicate little things on the walk too. Numbers of all these butterflies should increase throughout august.

Gatekeeper on Ragwort

Ringlets, which dominated last week were down significantly which really goes to show that the peak time really is mid july, as I only noted 14, compared with 5 times that last week. Meadow browns too were uncommon but numbers of Gatekeeper were up, and the Speckled Woods which were absent last week seemed to be back in small numbers.

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 :)