Garden Moths - Winyates East

A fairly calm night was not as cloudy as I had expected, and this probably accounts for the relatively low tally of 19 moths discovered this morning.

The complexity of moth identification increases as the season progresses and this morning I was faced with several problems. For a start I caught nine pugs and to make matters worse they were all showing signs of ageing and therefore fading.

My only potential first for the garden also presented me with a problem. I had just found two undoubted Swallow Prominents, and then noticed a third moth, about the same size, on the fence. However, this one seemed to show a bold and relatively short whitish wedge extending from the trailing corner of the upper wing. This should be diagnostic of Lesser Swallow Prominent, but was it short enough? It seemed to fall somewhere between the two in length. There is a post-script to this: I emailed John S and asked for his opinion. He did not reply, but I saw him on the Temminck's Stint day, and he told me he thought it was probably a Swallow Prominent. We agreed I would ask the county's moth recorder what he thought, and he later confirmed John's misgivings. It is a Swallow Prominent. Interesting.

Swallow Prominent

Swallow Prominent

Two other moths were new for the year; a Muslin Moth and a Knot Grass.

Muslin Moth

Knot Grass

The full total was:
Brindled Pug 6
Oak-tree Pug 2
Double-striped Pug 1
Swallow Prominent 3
Muslin Moth 1
Knot Grass 1
Common Quaker 3
Shuttle-shaped Dart 1
Clouded Drab 1

I also caught an alarmingly large German Median Wasp, a tick! Thanks are due to the irecord expert for correcting me in such a nice way.

Median Wasp

Finally, a Peregrine flew over with prey. A rare sighting for the garden.

I am currently investigating the possibility of buying a battery powered moth trap as an addition to my mains powered one. This could allow me to trap at Morton Bagot, as I do not have access to a mains power supply there.

The question is, are my identification skills up to it?