A day of hanging around waiting for insurance companies to call, white van men to deliver, and cricket (as compensation). At least it gave me the chance to put the trap out.
It was pretty good. The early breeze died down, it was partly overcast and reasonably warm, so there were moths a plenty. Specifically 136 of 51 species and about a dozen wasps.
As I haven't trapped in the garden for a fortnight there were plenty of new ones for the year list. However I will concentrate on the ones which were new for the garden.
The first has given me the biggest headache as it was clearly something new but also rather worn. After flirting with several species of noctuid, I eventually decided it was a
Cabbage Moth. This identification is subject to scrutiny by JS, but in the end I'm pretty confident of it.
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| Cabbage Moth |
As far as I know, this is a fairly common moth. Another cryptic species turned up in the next egg box, but this time I had the benefit of having seen one at Morton Bagot last weekend, and from it being quite fresh. It was a
Straw Underwing.
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| Straw Underwing |
From tricky brown patterned noctuids, to an extremely beautiful geometer. A real wow moment as I turned over the relevant egg box. The only disappointing thing about this moth was its name; a
Bordered Beauty.
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| Bordered Beauty |
As an added frisson of excitement I then found that this moth is described as widespread but uncommon in Warwickshire.
The final new moth was a micro, but quite a nice one. It was a honeysuckle specialist,
Ypsolopha dentella, probably benefitting from the unruly honeysuckle sprawling over our shed.
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| Ypsolopha dentella |
Other good moths included the second Grey/Dark Dagger for the garden, and the second Leopard Moth, although it sadly didn't survive the night.
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