Thursday May 19 - The moths are back

Moths are not to everyone's taste, and I must admit to a slight cooling in my enthusiasm for them this year. I only really look at them when they enter our Redditch garden, and over the last few years weekly trapping has brought me a list of 369 species. There can't be many more to catch, can there?

Well it turns out there may be. Trapping roughly every three weeks this year had yielded just species I had seen before. In fact my only garden tick was Esperia sulphurella, on the 18 May. This was the species I also found for the first time at Morton Bagot in April, a rather smart day-flying micro-moth.

Esperia sulphurella

I had been due to go birding this morning, but a last minute change of schedule has bounced it into Saturday. So instead I decided to put the trap out. The temperature was due to fall no lower than 12 degrees C, and this must have made a difference.

My overnight tally was 37 moths of 24 species, which is not too shabby at all. Even better, they weren't all ones I instantly recognised. In fact I got into my usual tangle trying to work out the odd looking ones.

Two were new for the garden, and therefore also new for me. One was a micro called Cochylimorpha straminea, and the other was a macro (but also a Pug) called Dwarf Pug. 

Cochylimorpha straminea

Dwarf Pug - rather worn

The Pug went through two alternative identifications before I hit on what has been confirmed as the right solution. I then realised that there was another one on the fence, also rather worn.

At the other end of the age scale I found this mysterious insect on the brickwork....

Initially I thought it was some weird micro, then started to wonder if it was even a moth. I tweeted a photo of it to an expert, but before I saw his reply (which was correct), I returned to the pot to discover a lovely freshly emerged Garden Carpet therein. 

Garden Carpet

Another notch on the learning curve of life.

Also new for the year were Light Brown Apple Moth (two), Coronet, Knot Grass, Vine's Rustic (three), Treble Lines (three), Pale Mottled Willow (subject to me finding it again after it escaped into the utility room), Diamond-back Moth, May High-flier, and Bryotropha affinis.

PS: Thanks to Mick Such for letting me know about the Red Kite over Poole Wood, they seem to be turning up everywhere nowadays, but still make for a spectacular sight to brighten any day.