Monday, 9 May 2016

Llandaff Sunday Night

It was very warm indeed but wind picked up around 1am. Nevertheless, a poor catch once again. Hundreds of small midges and flies but very few moths.

Brimstone Moth x 2, Flame Shoulder x 1, Light Brown Apple Moth x 15, Epinotia immundana x 12 and a rough count of 17 x St Marks Flies all female except 1.

I have a mature Apple tree and Alder tree in the garden along with many others so probably reason for the large count of Epinotia and LBAM.


Bridgend last night

27 individuals of 12 species were caught in our MV trap last night:- Light Brown Apple moth, The Cinnabar, Common Plume, Small Phoenix, Brimstone, Common Marbled Carpet, Brindled Beauty, Nut-tree Tussock, 7 Hebrew Character, Least Black Arches and 4 Angle Shades. Two Cockchafer beetles were also inside the trap, but the highlight was our first Waved Umber since 2013.

Llangynwyd last night. 21:30 - 01:30.

                            Least black arches
                           Semioscopis steinkellneriana, new for the valley
                            Eriocrania subpurpurella/ sangii?  Wing colour and
                            antennae length suggest E. sangii. Dissection needed?
                            87 moths of 29 species inc one Diamond back moth.
                            A very warm night, still 18 degrees at 1;30am!

Creigiau - Saturday night

A very wet, but warm night. The trap attracted 30 moths of 15 species, assuming my pug ID is correct. A number of 'first for year' moths, including V-Pug, Purple Thorn and White Ermine, but the highlight was definitely my first ever Pine Beauty.
Pine Beauty
The 'lowlight' was the Pugs! ... and why are they always so worn? Anyway, I think all 3 of the following are Brindled Pugs but, if past experience is anything to go by, I'm probably wrong! (the grid is 2mm)




Sunday, 8 May 2016

Also at Merthyr Mawr

After Paul's dusking session Marc Botham and I ran 5 traps (3x MV & 2x 6W actinic) in an extended trapping session on the dunes. It rained most of the time but the temperature held up nicely. The strange thing was that when the rain stopped, at about midnight, the moths stopped coming too - up to that point there'd been a steady stream of new species.

We recorded around 59 species in total, plus a couple of larvae seen in the torchlight (including Scarlet Tiger). There were no major highlights, just a nice selection of early spring (still penty of Orthosia species) and late spring species, including Scorched Carpet, Square Spot, Peach Blossom, Scalloped Hazel, Pale Pinion (photo) and pretty much all the common prominents except Iron. Micros included Monopis weaverella, Elachista argentella and Capua vulgana.


Gorseinon garden

21 species on what was quite a wet, but mild night, highlights being Mullein & Pine Beauty.

Merthyr mawr dusking yesterday.

                              Adela rufimitrella
                            Phyllonorycter coryli
                          Phyllonorycter rajella
                         Elachista rufocinerea?