An Early Moth

Running my trap for the Winter Garden Moth Scheme sometimes springs its surprises. After a stormy and fairly chilly night I wasn't expecting anything in the trap, but after checking through the egg boxes, I noticed a Noctuid at rest on the inside wall of the trap and was surprised to find it to be a Hebrew Character.

According to MapMate, this is one of only a handful of records of this species from the November-January period.

Some unidentified micros.

 The micro above is possibly Psoricoptera gibbosela? 3/9/13 Llangynwyd

 Possible Cnephasia conspersana? 28/7/13 Maesteg

 Any help welcomed on this small Tortrix sp? 17/7/13 New forest.
                             

Morlais Quarry Cave

Earlier today, Mike Hogan and I checked for wintering leps, in the most accessible of the caves (one we could walk into) in Morlais quarries. No butterflies were found, but there were 13 Heralds, which is by far the largest number of them we've had in there, but the best find, as far as we were concerned were a brace of Tissues. This was a new species for both Mike and I and the only previous record of it in SO00 was by George Fleming, in the early 20th century.

The Tissue

New Checklist

I've just had a look through the new checklist of Lepidoptera (groan!!!) and in many ways it is as strange and unsettling as I expected. The families have been reordered to some extent (for example, the Hawk-moths now come before the geometrids), which will take some getting used to, though I suppose that once field guides start using this ordering, the transition will be easier. My main concern is with the new numbering system, which consists of a two digit number, followed by a decimal point and three (rarely four) further digits. For instance Large Yellow Underwing will be 73.342. The first two digits represent the family, whereas the digits after the  point represent the genus and species. I have no problem with in principle, but the result is a rather cumbersome number, which if like me, one uses the number when entering records on MapMate, or putting them in order, when compiling lists after trapping sessions, these new numbers will make that task that much more of a chore and possibly lead to a greater number of mistakes.

Of course, this is just the opinion of conservative old duffer and I will have to knuckle down to it like everyone else. Many will no doubt welcome this new checklist as a breath of fresh air and long overdue, the latter being probably true. For my part, I just wish they had stuck with a numbering system that didn't include those pesky decimal points.

On a positive note, at least there is an alphabetical list of vernacular names (another with scientific names too) with the new numbers alongside them, making it quick to look up the new numbers.

Nooks and crannies

I was pleased to see 6 Tissue Moths & 2 Heralds in Bone Cave along with Greater and Lesser Horseshoes. Leps in Llanrhidian Church tower were 2 Peacocks, 16 Small Torts & 15 Heralds. The garden trap produced just singletons of Light Brown Apple Moth and December Moth.

Greater Horseshoe

Gowerton Wednesday 11th Dec

My wife found this Silver Y inside the conservatory this morning. Not a product of the mild southerly airflow, rather it has bred amongst the plants somewhere.
Also this Winter Moth female hatched from bilberry collected from the Black Mountains in May, though the larva could almost be a Northern WM.

Winter Moth female

Winter Moth larva on bilberry

Silver Y indoors

Parc Slip

Could someone confirm if these are both scarce umbers please?

Getting a bit confused looking at other blogs but these look very similar to George's Coed Y Bedw scarce umber below...