Friday September 3 - a rare moth, and a pre-alldayer round up

I got a text from Tony this morning. He had seen the Marsh Harrier but was catching nowt. This came as a pleasant surprise because the Harrier had last been seen on Tuesday. 

So I joined him for a chat. The harrier had been flying, pursued by crows, over the old pool field. I hope it didn't keep going. On my walk to where he'd set his nets I heard a Reed Warbler sub-singing from dense scrub, that would be a good one for tomorrow. Another handy bird was a Hobby which flew over Tony's nets as we talked.

Because of the disruption of the all-dayer I had trapped moths on Wednesday night. This produced over 90 moths including a few new for the year, and one I didn't recognise. Where birds are concerned seeing something I can't identify would set massive alarm bells ringing, but with moths it means nothing. There are plenty of moths I don't recognise.

Anyway, I photographed it and started trawling through the book to try to work it out. I eventually reached Dotted Rustic, and switched to Internet photos which seemed supportive.

Dotted Rustic

It was in an egg-box surrounded by Large Yellow Underwings and wasn't all that much smaller than them. The above image recalls Square-spot Rustic, several of which I caught, but although they can vary quite a bit, none I saw looked exactly like my moth. Also they are noticeably smaller than this beast which was about the size of a Lesser Yellow Underwing.

Underside view in case it helped

The interesting bit came when I looked up the status of Dotted Rustic. It seems that it is highly local and   fluctuates in numbers, the last time it was moderately common being in the 1980s. Since then it had all but died out in the Midlands, but there had been three in Warwickshire in 2019; two in Bidford and one in Leamington.

Although the flight period is mainly late June and July, it goes through a period of aestivation during August and early September. Presumably mine had just woken up.

I have submitted the record on irecord.com and am hopeful that it will be confirmed.

PS: Not only was it confirmed by Nigel (the recorder), but he also spotted that my two terrible photographs of what I had guessed was Holly Tortrix (to be fair I marked it as uncertain) was actually a new species for me; Epinotia nisella.

Epinotia nisella

When it works well, when the recorder/verifier regularly assesses your records, irecord is a fantastic service. I particularly like that some recorders just correct your identification and accept the correction. No fuss, no embarrassment.

The full list was:

Yponomeuta ag 2,    Epinotia nisella 1 (nfg),    Celypha lacunana 2,    Light Brown Apple Moth 2,     Agriphila geniculea 4,    Orange Swift 1,    Yellow Shell 2,    Double-striped Pug 1,    Willow Beauty 1,    Dusky Thorn 2,    Copper Underwing 7,    Old Lady 1 (nfy),    Flounced Rustic 8,    Centre-barred Sallow 2 (nfy),    Vine's Rustic 13,    Dotted Rustic 1 (nfg),    Large Yellow Underwing 32,    Lesser Yellow Underwing 1,    Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing 2,    Square-spot Rustic 9.