Friday, 15 July 2016

Gowerton surprise

Opened the trap this morning to find this looking at me! Hastily removed the egg box indoors out of the rain where it posed quietly for a photo. I've never seen Royal Mantle in Britain and the last Glamorgan record was 1893. As far as I can see there are no modern records for Wales, so goodness know what it is doing here, and it is in quite decent condition too. I'll keep it for now in case anyone wants to see it.

Royal Mantle. Gowerton 14th July 2016 
Posted by at

10 comments:

  1. GMT15 July 2016 at 13:59

    What an amazing record, congratulations. And a smart one too.

    PP and I trapped a few of these in Oxfordshire last weekend, but I'm pretty sure we didn't bring any back to Glamorgan with us :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris Manley15 July 2016 at 14:36

    Thanks George. I was trapping in Dungeness last weekend but didn't bring it back from there either as we didn't see any!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ian Morgan15 July 2016 at 20:16

    I was only last night looking at the Somerset moth blog, where someone had a Royal Mantle and thought `no chance` of one here in SW Wales. I`ve also just moaned (on the Carms moth blog) about the weather and `nothing around`. So, `one for the books`, Chris - really well done...I bet your eyes popped out!

    ReplyDelete
  4. DRWG15 July 2016 at 21:07

    Brilliant record, well done Chris. I've seen them in Ireland, but I didn't think I'd hear of one in Glamorgan. And to think we (GMRG book comm.) nearly took this species off the VC41 list as a mis-ID! Well and truly nailed now.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chris Manley15 July 2016 at 21:32

    Thanks David and Ian. It certainly was a surprise as the first moth I saw in the trap, which I only put out to do this week's Garden Moth Scheme. Yes, Moths of Glamorgan gave me the record of 1893 which showed that it's not exactly common!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Paul Parsons16 July 2016 at 10:07

    Great record Chris.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Barry Stewart16 July 2016 at 14:48

    Wow 'moth gold' and contender for 'moth of the year' - great pic too

    ReplyDelete
  8. Barry Stewart16 July 2016 at 14:49

    Wow 'moth gold' and contender for 'moth of the year' - great pic too

    ReplyDelete
  9. sambbryo16 July 2016 at 20:16

    Crumbs - I wonder if it's a wanderer from SW England or an indication of a local population. From memory, there's a Gwent record assumed to result from wandering out of Gloucs.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Chris Manley20 July 2016 at 18:54

    Many thanks Paul, Barry and Sam. Come across from Devon I would guess.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)