Mompha terminella

Stumbled across this Mompha terminella at Garnwen [SS8392], Maesteg on 6th July 2019. Not a good photo, but enough for ID.  Looking at the data on the new web site there have been only 2 previous Glamorgan records, one of which was a leaf-mine.

Small Marbled, Barry, July 4th

Thursday night was quite good for numbers and new species for the year and I thought I might have a NFG in this little 'micro' which had survived the sparrows and blackbirds sat on the corner of the trap. After trawling through the micros book fruitlessly I realised it was a Small Marbled and not a micro at all!

Also from the same night we had two Round-winged Muslin NFG and this morning there was a single Lunar-spotted Pinion.

Llandaff Garden - 30th June

A lovely and warm evening, a balmy 21.2 C. Sadly, it was a disappointing evening except for a second garden record of Small Elephant Hawk moth, and a lovely micro - Chrysoclista linneella. A new record for the garden.

Chrysoclista linneella

Creigiau Tuesday 25 June

Some micros from the garden moth box on Tuesday night. my tentative IDs are as follows, but I'm not really sure about any of them so would appreciate assistance before I put them on SEWBReCORD.
Bryotropha sp
Ephestia unicolorella
Endothenia sp (2 images)
Phycitodes sp (2 images)
Wax Moth (2 images)

Hot in Horton

Two traps left overnight in a garden by Horton Cliff produced a very good haul yesterday morning, with ~944 individuals of 126 species, the more interesting including: Plutella xylostella 20, Argyresthia cupressella 1, Argolamprotes micella 3, Lozotaeniodes formosana 1, Delplanqueia dilutella 2, Anerastia lotella 1, Udea ferrugalis 1, Mecyna asinalis 2, Privet Hawk-moth 8, Silky Wave 1, Mullein Wave 2, Small Blood-vein 1, Fern 3, Pretty Chalk Carpet 1, Haworth's Pug 3, Shaded Pug 1, Grass Emerald 6, Reddish Light Arches 2, Shore Wainscot 5, L-album Wainscot 3, Devonshire Wainscot 1, Sand Dart 2 & Crescent Dart 1. With a count 217, Dark Arches was the commonest species, followed by 180 Heart & Darts and 50 Large Yellow ‘Underpants’. 

Later in the day we called in to see Veronica in Cwm Ivy; she had also recorded a bumper catch which including a Vestal she had potted up. She also observed a Hummingbird Hawk in her garden a couple of days previously and I saw one in the middle of Merthyr on the 26th. On the 27th we had two species at home, Argyresthia cupressella and Scarlet Tiger, taking our Gorseinon urban garden list onto 756.

Moths on Dyer's Greenweed

There are quite a few rare micro-moths on Dyer's Greenweed (there's even a Butterfly Conservation factsheet devoted to them, see here).  One of the reasons the moths are rare is that greenweed is a much declined plant of old pastures. Another reason is that management of remaining stands of the plant is often inappropriate for the moths, for example heavy grazing or mowing in late spring or early summer would remove any micro-moth larvae that would be feeding on the plants at the time.

Last year I found a larva of Mirificarma lentiginosella on greenweed on a chance visit to Cosmeston Lakes CP (see blog post here). I followed this up with a survey for Butterfly Conservation at Lavernock Point Nature Reserve last week, and was delighted to find not only quite a few M. lentiginosella larvae, but also four larvae of the rarer Agonopterix atomella. The latter species was only known from around 10 UK sites, with no Welsh records since the 1970s (those were in Gwent, where I failed to find it on surveys in 2014-2015).

Agonopterix atomella larva

Greenweed plants where Agonopterix atomella found

Mirificarma lentiginosella larva

Encouraged by this I thought it was worth a more extensive search at Cosmeston, and a visit yesterday resulted in a couple of M. lentiginosella and, more excitingly, seven larvae of A. atomella. These were spread over a wide area, in three different fields.

So we now know of two Welsh sites for these scarce moths, both in Glamorgan and separated by only a mile or two. The moths might be out there somewhere else, but there aren't many sites with good stands of the foodplant.

Port Eynon Pug

Visiting for a week from Bucks and trapping in my mum's garden.

This pug came on Saturday night, and as I'm useless at most pugs, someone has suggested Maple Pug (albeit a bit early). I would appreciate the thoughts of those who know better the status locally. I see from the excellent glamorganmoths website (I wish we had similar in Bucks!) that there is a record from Gower in June 2018 so that makes me think it can be early!

Dave Morris
Port Eynon