Mynydd Aberdar Again

Being determined to take advantage of the unusually mild nights, I was determined to get out with the Skinner trap on Friday night. I had originally planned to trap a site in the valley bottom, but with the prospect of thunder storms approaching from the south after midnight, I decided to get up high, where I could have advance warning of their approach, allowing time to sort out the catch and pack up.

I started the trap at 21:30 and trapped until 01:00, by which time the regular booms of distant thunder could be heard to the east and south of me. At 14.40 C, the unusually mild night proved to be not that unusual and perhaps not surprisingly, very similar to that of the week before. In the end, I had 63 species, the highlights of which were 5 Diamond-back Moths, Gold Spangle and a Northern Rustic.
Having packed up early, it was galling to see the thunder storms stay away to the east, the first rain only reaching here at around dawn.

My 22 watt actinic garden trap did almost as well, having the advantage of running all night, with a large catch of around 60 species, the undoubted highlight of which being a single Catoptria falsella. There aren't many records of this species in Glamorgan and this was certainly a first for me.

Catoptria falsella

Plume

Any ideas which plume this is?

Saturday morning 19th July

The Gem from yesterday was back in the trap. Archer's Dart was unusual for the garden, and the sinuella was posing nicely!

1481 Homoeosoma sinuella

2085 Archer's Dart

Parc Slip

The MV survived the heavy showers and strong winds (plus thunder and lightning) and the minimum temp of 19 degrees meant there were a lot of moths present first thing this morning. They were very lively too so undoubtedly lost plenty whenever I reached in to get an egg box. Despite that we recorded over 105 species including over 70 macro species. Highlights were probably a dark form of peppered moth, a very strongly marked black arches (with a wide black band across the centre of wings) - both of which escaped pre-photo, pebble hook-tip, bordered beauty, blue-bordered carpet, chevron, double kidney, rosy rustic and swallow-tailed moth. Plenty I wasn't sure of too so if anyone could help that would be much appreciated:

Is this a white-spotted pug?

I believe this is one of the 2 Rhyacionia sp.? it seems to tick all the boxes for pinicolana in a couple of books but is this photo good enough for id? I'd released it before realising how scarcely recorded they are...

Oidaematophorus lithodactyla?

Paraswammerdamia nebulella?

And finally this tiny moth...

Also in the trap were an orange ladybird, a harlequin ladybird, Cicadella viridis, a hawthorn shieldbug and a red-legged shieldbug.

Gowerton 18th July

Gem, female

Still 20 degrees this morning after the humid southerlies last night but this was the only migrant amongst 77 species.

Hoary Footman?

I have a vague recollection of Dave querying some Footman records from last year and asking to see specimens in future, but I can't remember which ones!

Anyway, two of these arrived in the trap on 16/7, and I reckon they are Hoary Footman (men?):

Am I OK to record them as that?

Beech-green Carpet new for Breconshire

I left my two 6W Heath traps overnight at Craig Cerrig NNR on 16th July, and was joined by Mark Evans (and about a million midges) for trap emptying the next morning.

A large catch of around 350 moths of 53 species was recorded, but there was only one moth of real note - this Beech-green Carpet which Norman Lowe has confirmed is the first record for VC42.

There are only two modern Glamorgan records - from Horton in 1995 (Brock) and Coed-y-wenallt in 1997 (Gilmore & Powell). GMRG held a trapping session at the latter site in July 2010 to try and refind it, but without success. Maybe we should try again?

George