Monday 30 June 2014

Rhoose queries

Am I right in thinking that this is Catoptria margaritella?  Possibly a wanderer as the micro book describes its habitat as boggy heaths, mosses and moors, which doesn't sound like Rhoose Point to me...!

Puzzled by this one - I'm assuming it's a melanic form of a geometrid, unless I've missed something!
I first thought this might be Acrobasis advenella, which I have recorded here before.  The inner pale cross-line doesn't look quite right to me though.  Possibly A marmorea?  It's also lacking the paired black dots at two thirds.


Sunday 29 June 2014

Pwll Waun Cynon Nature Reserve

After watching the forecasts and keeping an eye on the online rainfall radars for most to the afternoon and early evening, I had almost given up hope of getting out trapping, but at around eight, I noticed that the showers shown on the radar, heading down from the north had started to fizzle out before they got here, so made the decision to attempt a mothing session at a local WTSWW nature reserve, near Mountain Ash; called Pwll Waun Cynon and I'm glad I did, for although the sky looked threatening at first, it remained dry and overcast, so the minimum temperature stayed just in double figures.

I trapped from 22:05 to 03:20 and had eighty species, including the micros Hedya salicella, Batrachedra praeangusta, Eidophasia mesingiella and Gillmeria (Platyptilia) pallidactyla, at least that's what I believe it to be.


Hedya salicella

Gillmeria pallidactyla?








Amongst the macros, I had 10 Elephant Hawk-moths, 6 Poplar Hawk-moths, Double Line, Double Dart, Burnished Brass, Brown Line Bright Eye, Bordered Sallow, Buff Tip, Satin Wave, Round-winged muslin and Scarce Footman, but the highlight and surprise of the night was undoubtedly a single Blackneck. I have only previously seen one, years ago, at a GMRG field meeting in Kenfig and didn't expect to see one up here in the valleys. The foodplant, Tufted Vetch is present on the reserve, so I assume it is probably resident there.

The Blackneck

Friday 27 June 2014

Wet night in Port Eynon

A much lower catch last night with all the rain and wind, with the only new species being Phlyctaenia coronata, and the thing below which looks to me like Pearly Underwing, but I would appreciate opinions if possible based on this pic (not a species I've seen before, but the size and shape is right, and in the hand the part of the underwing visible is a sort of pearlescent blue and it does seem to have the white dot at the wing bases per a comment from Mr Stewart on an earlier post in this blog.

Also, the previous night new for the garden and/or year list were Flame Carpet, Pale Mottled Willow, Scallop Shell, Purple Bar and Crescent Dart. 

 Pearly Underwing?
Scallop Shell

Thursday 26 June 2014

Rhoose highlights

A few highlights from the last couple of weeks:  Mecyna asinalis, Yellow Shell, Spinach, a pair of Crescent Plume, Phoenix, Coleophora albitarsella, Orthopygia glaucinalis, a few Scarlet Tigers and Fern. 

Migrants have been thin on the ground, but I have had a few Silver Y, Rusty-dot Pearl and a couple of Dark Sword-grass in addition to the H/bird Hawk that I posted the other day.

Also a query on this one, sorry about the photo, but I reckon it may be a Large Wainscot, but I'm not 100% sure...  Any ideas?


Bridgend - night of 24Jun14

MV trapping on my birthday and our wedding anniversary produced a nice present - a new species for the garden in the form of Ash Bud moth (354th and our 97th micro). We recorded 42 species, 128 individuals, mainly Heart & Dart, Riband Wave and Chrysoteuchia cu1mella. However we also caught Pseudogyrotozoa conwagana (first since 2007) and July Highflyer (2006). Also new for the year were Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix, Grass Veneer, Grey Pug, Short-cloaked moth, Common Wainscot and Marbled Beauty.

Later in the local Primary School where Emma takes Forest Schools, she caught Heart & Dart, Large Yellow Underwing, Tortrix sp (to be id) and another Pseudo. conwagana. The children were delighted to look at a range of what we caught that night. Hopefully it will stimulate enough interest to perhaps encourage the moth recorders of the future!

Mike & Emma Cram

Gwent VC35

Mike Powell and myself went to have a look for Marbled White today at Slade Woods, with no luck. However we did net a micro: Dotted Ermel (Ethmia dodecea) at ST45-89-. Quickly looking at the UK Moths map for this species there wasn't a dot for Wales. On going home I went through VC41 data, not recorded and what I had for Gwent, again nothing. Mike then texted with info on Horton's Monmouthshire Leps, and there was record for 13.vii.1969 at Wyndcliff (again on Gwent Moths website). I don't know whether this species has been recorded in Gwent since 1969 or is this the first since? Below is a poor record shot, DS is coming round tomorrow to take the moth and get a better photo. Both Mike & I would like to know exactly what is the status for VC35, indeed Wales if Known. Cheers MCP & DRWG - and Joshua Powell!!
PS. Had a Scarlet Tiger on the in-laws wall at Rogerstone later too.


Beautiful Snout in Cardiff

I've had a report from James Hill of a Beautiful Snout in his garden trap in Whitchurch, which to my knowledge will be only the second record for Cardiff. Interestingly Roger James also had one in his garden trap in Newport over the last couple of nights so it could be another species having a good year!

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Llangynwyd last night.

                            Swallowtail moth
                            Hedya ochroleucana?   A first for the valley if confirmed...
                            67 sp despite my generator playing up, with Small argent
                            and sable new for the site.
                              

Port Eynon Again...!

This morning I was greeted by the sight of a large number of Blackbirds and Magpies dancing around my trap, and judging by the number of loose wings, I lost a few moths today :(

However, counting up what was left, I had 160 Heart & Dart and 112 Dark Arches, which was very - er - brown. 15 Elephant Hawk-moths brightened things up though :)

New species were few, with Plain Golden Y, Poplar Grey, Clay and Miller being new for my year list and Sandy Carpet and Poplar Hawk-moth being new for the garden.

(Slightly out of focus) Miller

Some of the brown things...

hummingbird hawkmoth

Just took this pic in the garden, always nice to see one of these!


Llandaff North last night

A couple of nice additions to the garden list last night - Cherry Bark Moth Enarmonia formosana and Small Elephant Hawk. The former is overdue - Jake catches them regularly in Roath - but the Small Elephant seems to be the first Cardiff record since 1997.

Small Elephant Hawk

Enarmonia formosana

Also catching good numbers of Heart and Club recently, and quite a few Ancylis achatana.


George

Parc Slip monday night

As a follow up to Paul's post below: thanks to Paul's help with the micros we ended up with 380+ moths of over 100 species including 67 macros. I wasn't sure of this little geometrid though - looks like Satin Wave but I realise that is scarce in the county?

Other firsts for the year included satin beauty, buff arches, miller, grey arches and bright-line brown-eye. A giant lacewing Osmylus fulvicephalus was a nice addition to the trap too. Top scorers this week were double line (20), small fan-footed wave (17) and elephant hawkmoth (16).

Gorseinon

Argyresthia dilectella was an overdue addition to the garden list last night. From the 72 species recorded others were of no more than general interest such as Coronet 2, Double Line 2, Green Silver-lines 1, Scallop Shell 1, Shark 1, Short-cloaked Moth 1 & Wood Carpet 1. Heart and Dart 62 was the commonest species followed by Heart and Club 33.

Tuesday 24 June 2014

Parc slip this morning.

                          Poplar grey
                         Argolamprotes micella
                         Cork moth (Nemapogon cloacella).
                         Thanks to Vaughn for letting me know about the early start!
                         Also Valerian pug and Lozotaenia forsterana were notables.

Eyed Hawk

Roath: The wee beast this am!

Manically trapping in Port Eynon

The MV went out last night in the garden, and as expected I got hundreds of moths although the large majority of them were brown things heavily tucked away in the egg boxes; mainly Heart & Dart, Dark Arches & Double Square-spot.

New for me this year were V Pug, Barred Straw, Mother of Pearl, Sharp-angled Peacock, and Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing plus a couple of things I'm not sure about, illustrated below (not necessarily very well due to low light this morning).




Dave Morris

Monday 23 June 2014

Whitford Sunday 22nd June

https://www.flickr.com/photos/39907519@N08/
A great evening at Whitford. Dave Morris, see below, from Buckingham and I had 100 species plus a few micros still to determine. As my computer won't let me post pics here the link above should take you to my Flickr account for some photos. Best of the bunch were Phtheochroa sodaliana and Diasemiopsis ramburialis.

Rudry

 Beautiful Hook tip from 21.6.14.The second trapped here in a week
 could do with some help with i.d on these two please.

Monochroa tenebrella.


                              Nantyffyllon, tuesday 17th.
                              Thanks for the ID Dave.

Port Eynon Garden

After an excellent session last night out in the dunes with Mr Manley, which added a few species to my life list like White Colon, Sand Dart, Grass Rivulet, Galium Carpet et al, I got up at the crack of dawn to see what had arrived to my simple 15W actinic in my parent's garden in Port Eynon.

In addition to huge numbers of Heart & Dart, although nothing desperately unusual turned up, I managed to add a few to my (thus far Buckinghamshire based) year list, with Cypress Carpet, Currant Pug, Turnip Moth, Lilac Beauty (a lifer for me), Privet Hawk-moth , Brown China-mark and Grey Dagger (agg).

The number of moths I can get here in a garden is about the same as I'd get at home in a woodland with a brace of MVs... the MV is going out tonight...

Lilac Beauty

Privet Hawk-moth


Also, can anyone id this for me from the pic?

Dave Morris

Out of county: Craig Cerrig Gleisiad NNR

As there is no Brecon blog and the site is not too far from our northern border, I thought I may as well post this here...

I left two 6W Heath traps overnight at this wonderful craggy site in the Brecon Beacons NP - a place I've been wanting to trap at for years.
Trap site at base of screes
This morning the traps were pretty well stuffed with moths. Around 52 species were recorded in total (including a few netted at dusk and dawn), the highlights among which were the upland specialities Light Knot Grass and Grey Mountain Carpet. Dark Brocades were also quite numerous.

Several species were very numerous, as is often the case at upland sites, particularly Brown Rustic, True Lover's Knot and Broom Moth.

A good haul
Grey Mountain Carpet
Light Knot Grass
Dark Brocade
I have permission from NRW to do a few more trapping sessions this summer, so will try and return in a few weeks if the weather permits.

Roath Central Cardiff

A few decent traps over the past couple of days. Highlights Clay Triple-lines (22nd, first for site), Treble Brown Spot (22nd, 2nd site rec. & first since 1996), Old Lady, Haworth's Pug & Dingy Shears. Best year for Heart & Club in garden, beating 1996 here. Still catching a few Yellow-spot Tortrix (P. conwagana). No migrants though.

Sunday 22 June 2014

Bridgend overnight 21st June 2014

MV trap in our garden overnight produced 42 species on a warm night which kicked off with a Common Pipistrelle tucking in to the early visitirs to the trap!

The highlight was a first for us - one of the Oegoconia sp, the 353rd species for the garden and our 9th species of micro species to be recorded there.

Other highlights were Common Lutestring, Pebble Hook-tip (last seen 2007), Swallow-tailed moth, Peppered moth, an Elephant Hawkmoth, White Ermine (first since 2010), Grey Dagger, Smoky Wainscot (first since 2007), Dot moth, Cloaked minor, Small Fan-foot and a Beautiful Hook-tip. We also recorded what appeared to be some sort of Caddisfly species - any ideas which one?
Oegoconia sp

Caddisfly sp?
unidentified micro

Mike & Emma

Gwyl Taf Nature Reserve

Mike Hogan and I ran our traps on the 20th, for the Gwyl Taf nature reserve's bioblitz. The skies were clear and the temperatures quickly dropped. By 23:00 they were in single figures and by the time I was knocking my trap down, at 02:30, it had dropped to 8.00C. As a consequence of the cool conditions, the catches were limited to forty-odd species per trap, the highlights being: Sallow Kitten, Buff Tip, Double Line, Small Seraphim and Scorched Wing. Micros were few, but included two individuals of this Pammene, though that is as far as I can go with the identification. P. albuginana seems closest, but that would be a first for VC41 and possibly for Wales: suggestions please!


Rosy Wave

A first for the garden in Gowerton this morning was a Rosy Wave
See link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/39907519@N08/14476959064/

Saturday 21 June 2014

Broughton to Burry Holms Sat 21Jun14

Emma and I took a walk at Broughton between 3 and 5pm and noted singles of Six-spot Burnet, Five-spot Butnet and Cinnabar moth. We also noted 12 species of butterfly in fabulous weather: 1 Large White, 1 Small White, 1 Green-veined White, 3+ Little Blue, 1 Common Blue, 2 Red Admiral, 1 Small Tortoiseshell, 1 Ringlet, 10+ Small Heath, 5+ Meadow Brown, 3+ Small Skipper, 7+ Large Skipper.

Friday 20 June 2014

Bridgend Garden MV Night of 18th

A fine haul of 120 individuals of 35 species. The highlight, our first record of Toadflax Pug for the Garden (352nd for site, 257th macro) and was also a new life species for us.

Other notable records included only our 3rd record of Ingrailed Clay (last 2012), 2nd Record of Bordered White (2005) and our first Middle-barred Minor since 2006.

Other highlights: Pammene regiana, Bee moth, Willow and Mottled Beauty, large numbers of Heart & Dart and Heart & Club, Double Square-spot, Clay, Light Arches, Straw Dot and Fan-foot.

Mike & Emma Cram

Abercregan last night.

                                Clouded magpie.
                                52 species including 10 Elephant hawkmoth, 2 Poplar hawkmoth,
                                Campion, Beautiful snout, Pinion streaked snout, Figure of eighty,
                                Red necked footman, Double line and Northern spinach.

Thursday 19 June 2014

Dunraven today.

                             Hummingbird hawkmoth on the coastal path.

Gowerton 18 June

Managed to photograph Argyresthia dilectella this morning in the trap, which can hopefully be seen from this link.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39907519@N08/14456296024/
Also saw Dichrorampha alpinana amongst the Ox-eye Daisies, as well as Blackneck, Gothic, Beautiful Carpet and others.

Wednesday 18 June 2014

Monopis crocicapitella, Nantyffyllon.

                                   From 18/7/2013. A county first according to Mapmate.
                                   Thanks Dave for the ID.

Out of County (just)

Working in Penderyn (just over the border in VC42) today, I noticed a couple of Silver Y in a flowery meadow next to the garden I was in, then in the early afternoon I saw a Hummingbird Hawk-moth briefly take nectar at Bramble flowers then shoot off like greased lightning.

Costal Folds

Since I don't think you can add images to comments, I thought it would be easier to create a new post to show highlight the costal fold - a character I keep banging on about, as it can be rather useful with male tortricids. It is a sense organ on some males, and contains scent scales. So here is a close-up of Vaughn's Notocelia:
And here it is again with the fold highlighted:
On a good photo of a male Tortricid it can usually be seen. So here is an image of E. trimaculana on UK-Moths. The fold can be seen, and reaches nearly the middle of the wing: http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=4707
I can't see a fold on the two rosaecolana photos, but on roborana: http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=1178
and on incarnatana: http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=3857
the fold is again reaching the middle of the wing - as it should according to Bradley et al (1979).
If you keep going through UK-Moths you will see some quite striking folds: http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=1180
http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=1181
The costal fold was the key character indicating to me that this moth:
was Epiphyas postvittana, and not Clepsis consimilana. For the discussion check the original post (here). Essentially, the fold can be seen to about 2/5ths, whilst Clepsis does not have one at all.