Lanlay Meadows, Saturday night

I was tempted by a warm cloudy evening and headed down to Lanlay Meadows, but fell victim (like Mark the night before) to that meteorological phenomenon which is the curse of moth trappers: the cloud vanishing at dusk allowing the temperature to fall away. It was down to 8.5C with a heavy dew when I finished at 1am.

The moths kept trickling in though and I ended up recording 50 species. The best of the macros were Little Thorn, Lobster, Figure of Eighty and Small Seraphim (about as far east as the latter species occurs in VC41). Best of all, though, was the pretty little oak-feeding gelechiid Teleiodes luculella. Previously this has only been recorded from three sites in the western part of the county, so it is good to know it also occurs in the east.

Teleiodes luculella

George