5th March The Season has started!

Ran the trap in the nearby woods for 4 hours last night. Rewarded with 149 moths of 13 species, and it was still 8.5 degrees at 11pm

Yellow Horned, showing orange antenna

Pale Brindled Beauty fm monacharia

I was especially pleased to see this Yellow Horned, my first sighting in Wales in six years, and also the dark form of Pale Brindled Beauty was new for me.

My Cwmbach Garden, Last Night

I ran the garden actinic all last night, as it was forecast to be relatively mild. The minimum temperature was 4.70 C and it remained dry, but there were no moths on the trap, come this morning. Inside, however, were seven moths of six species:

Torticodes alternella x 1

Tortricodes alternella

March Moth x 1
Pale Brindled Beauty x 1
Common Quaker x 1
Hebrew Character x 1
The Chestnut x 2

It was especially nice to see the Common Quaker and Hebrew Character.

In Sunday, I visited a wooded valley, near Llwydcoed and on the Polystichum aculeatum (Hard Shield Fern), I came across lots of the leaf mines pictured below.

On the undersides of the fronds were larval cases, enclosed in the detached sporangia from the fern, as can be seen below.   

I think this may be Psychoides filicivora, but it is possible that it may be P. verhuella, which is the only Phychoides species I've ever come across, locally. 

I don't rear through, so I suppose the only way to be certain is to keep visiting the site in the hope of seeing an adult.

                                        

My First Butterfly of 2013

Real bit of Spring in the air today, and I was delighted to see a Small Tortoiseshell flying over the garden early this afternoon in Bargoed. This is exactly one week earlier for the species than last year. The insect was a bit the worst for wear with rather ragged wings, survived hibernation though, only hope that this year is kinder to both our butterflies and moths than the last one was!!!

First butterfly of the year

The sun today must be bringing a few things out of hibernation.  First butterfly of the year (for me at least), a Red Admiral basking in the sun on the wall of the house I am renovating in Barry.

Moth News

Some rather depressing Moth news from Butterfly Conservation from their 'State of Britain's Larger Moths 2013' report. 

The authors of that report state that some 60 species have been lost to Great Britain during the last 100 years. Of these, we may have lost a further three: Bordered Gothic, Brighton Wainscot & Orange Upperwing since 2000. Three other species Barberry Carpet, Slender Scotch Burnet & Dark-bordered Beauty may be going the same way. 

Other species like The Spinach, The V Moth have decreased by 95%, with the Garden Tiger also in the category. Other threatened species suffering similar declines are Pale Eggar, Figure of Eight, Garden Dart & Grey Chi.

Many of the above are still present in VC41, although some have not been recorded for several years.

Glamorgan Stats: [per GMRG database]

Orange Upperwing last recorded in VC41 c1874

Pale Eggar c1960

Bordered Gothic 1996 (although the records suggest they were the race Hibernica from Ireland and could well have been immigrants rather than a resident population).

V Moth 2002

Figure of Eight 2002 (a species that seems confined to the SE in VC41)

Spinach 2010

Grey Chi 2011 (mainly a species from northern districts in VC41)

Garden Dart 2011

Garden Tiger 2012

For further info on these and other species please visit:

www.justgiving.com/moth-challenge-fund

FSC biodiversity fellows

Thought it might be worth popping this link up;

http://www.field-studies-council.org/supporting-you/fsc-projects/current-projects/biodiversity-fellows.aspx.

If you sign up for the programme it looks like you can get subsidised access to various biological recording courses, some of which look quite interesting....!

Correction to Table

I don't know what I was thinking of when I worked out the species totals for the Winter GMS table, but the figures are as wrong as they could be. The correct figures are given below.

Year                  Species Total
2009-10                    12
2010-11                     8
2011-12                     7
2012-13                     5

Far more realistic figures I think you'll agree.