GMS Nantyffyllon last night.

                               Oak beauty

                               Acleris hastiana.
                               Just the two sp. min temp 5 degrees.

Creigiau 20 March

A mild evening so put the box out for an hour  - sky cleared at approx 20:30 and the temperature plummeted from 6C to just above freezing so I closed it down. Had 11 moths of 8 species so worth the effort ... the usual suspects including another Agonopterix heracliana/ciliella.

I'm sure I can see more than one line in the cilia on the hind wing. I also thought this for the one in the GMS box on Friday but they appear to be a bit clearer in these images .... maybe. Are they clear enough for me to say that this is A. ciliella ? (all images taken through the sides of a plastic petri dish)

Creigiau - 17 March

Put the box out Friday night for GMS - still 9C at midnight but the minimum for the night dropped to 3.8C.
Best box of the year so far with 22 moths of 11 species, several of which were new for the year. Saw the (currently) regular Dotted Border, Hebrew Character,Oak Beauty & Pale Brindled Beauty and added to these were Clouded Drab, Common Quaker, Early Grey, Small Quaker & Twin-spotted Quaker.
Also saw Agonopterix heracliana/ciliella and Mottled Grey.

Parc Slip

Despite the heavy rain, I had the most productive trap of the year so far at Parc Slip last night - 41 moths of 12 species with highlights being pine beauty (always nice to see), grey shoulder-knot and shoulder stripe. Other than that it was the usual spring fare of quakers, clouded drab, hebrew character, march moth, mottled umber and early grey. An Agonopterix heracliana/ciliella was the solitary micro.

Coed Garnllwyd

Rob and Linda Nottage and I found this pupal case (I presume) at Coed Garnllwyd near Llancarfan last week (and another on the same tree this week) - anyone have any ideas as to what might have emerged from it??

Parc tir iarll, Llangynwyd 13/3/18

                              Oak beauty

                               Early grey

                              Clouded drab

                              Dotted border

                               Grey shoulder knot.
                               11 sp in all, with Common and Small quakers the most
                               numerous. 10 sp new for the site.

Bactra robustana

I recently dissected a Bactra which was trapped at Merthyr Mawr on 22/8/17. It looked a decent shout for B. robustana, a saltmarsh species, but I struggled to make sense of the genitalia preparation and so posted some photos on the Moth Dissection Facebook group. Raymond Watson quickly replied to say it was indeed robustana and gave a detailed summary of the clinching features.

 

This would appear to be the most easterly VC41 record though my MapMate probably isn't quite up to date.