It must be winter...

This was on our kitchen window last night.

Winter Moth male

George (Llandaff North)

Maesteg.

White shouldered house moth in my kitchen last night, the latest one i've seen.
Angle shades on Tesco's window this morning.

Rusty-dot Pearl

This larva was found feeding on Sea Beet on Barry Island on 24th October.

I brought it home and kept it indoors - it pupated on 1st November and the adult emerged today. Tony Davis suggested Udea ferrugalis based on a photo of the larva and he was spot on. Nice to see a pristine moth at this time of year.

Udea ferrugalis

Yellow-line What???

Not a species new to science, just a Yellow-line quaker and a senior moment!

Winter GMS: Cwmbach

Despite heavy rain at times, there were seven moths of five species attracted to the trap, last night, including an incredibly late Acleris forsskaleana (the latest date I can find for this species in MapMate is 27 August, so I think your time warp has spread this way, Adam), which I tried and completely failed to photograph. There was also a worn Acleris ferrugana/notana type, which I'm now kicking myself over, for not retaining for examination. If it reappears at the kitchen window tonight, I'll certainly do that.

Anyway, the list is:

Acleris forsskaleana x 1
Acleris ferrugana/notana type x 1
Red-green Carpet x 1
Spruce Carpet x 3
Yellow-line Carpet x 1

Identity check, in Gowerton

In yesterday morning's trap was this which, from Phil Sterling's book, I identified as Monopis crocicapitella. However, I have photos of a similar from 2009 identified as M obviella. I gather I should have looked at the hindwing as well, which I didn't realise until too late!
Any suggestions/opinions gratefully received.

Query: Monopis crocicapitella

Oleander Hawk-moth, bred

Also attached: not an exciting first for Glamorgan I'm afraid but a beautiful moth anyway, reared from tiny larva acquired at the AES show 6th October.

Another Trend Test

Since the first article was recieved with interest, I thought I'd quickly try a slightly different tack on a different species. Dusky Thorn was the one hailed in the State of Britain's Larger Moths as showing the greatest decline of all species, so I thought I'd see if my rudimentary stats would show something up. So below we have two graphs. The first is in line with what I'd done for the Heart and Dart & Large Yellow Underwing, in that it is the number of individuals weighted against 'Trap Nights'.

It is now know that this is a species with large peaks and troughs in it's abundance, and it certainly had a few good years as soon as the report was published. It did occur to me that my method would come unstuck if a lot of recording additional effort was put in at times of year when the given species was not on the wing - so more people taking part in the Winter Garden Moth Scheme would cause a drop in the averages of summer species, so I tried this:

And this shows the average catch across the various years - so recording effort is taken into account, but only when the moth is trapped.Interesting that the huge peak of 2009 in the previous chart has been levelled out. Essentially it was well recorded in 2009 compared to total recording effort, but the average catches were, well, average I suppose! 2011 looks like it was a poor year for this common garden species, but I've not yet got all the 2012 data in so can't say whether that is a trend or a blip.