Saturday 14 May 2016

Hensol Forest, Thursday night

My dad and I trapped at Hensol Forest on Thursday night - the last really warm night of the recent fine weather. There were lots of moths but, unfortunately, also lots of midges.

The highlight was two specimens of Cydia strobilella. The only other county record comes from 1934, when Hallett reared this species from spruce cones at Swanbridge. In the last couple of weeks this moth has been reported widely in southern England, sometimes away from conifer plantations, and Ian Morgan trapped one new for Carmarthenshire. Some of the recent records may be immigrants or wandering individuals, but Hensol contains lots of spruce so it seems likely the moth is breeding there.
Cydia strobilella, specimen 1

Cydia strobilella, specimen2
Sixty species were trapped in total including Devon Carpet, Waved Umber, Purple Thorn, Scalloped Hook-tip, Lunar Marbled Brown, Marbled Brown, Dwarf Pug, Little Thorn, Square Spot and Swammerdamia caesiella.
Little Thorn
Square Spot
Swammerdamia caesiella

1 comment:

  1. You did well George. After our pre-trapping discussion about trying some conifer sites on Thursday, I `copped out` (excuse= tired and some clearing skies) and only trapped at home. Another strobilella was caught on Thurs in NE Carms by Peter Sturgess (see Carms moth blog). I`d emailed you before reading the Glam blog.

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