Thursday 18 September 2014

A tricky identification

Two nights ago I had a very worn moth in the garden trap. It had some residual markings of a Dotted Rustic but also looked like many other large noctuids and so required a more detailed examination. It turned out to be a worn Dotted Rustic, sadly nothing rarer although this is the only second of this species I had seen, and was swiftly followed by a better marked one the night after accompanied by my first Mallow of the year.

Worn Dotted Rustic - Benson 15th September

Less worn Dotted Rustic - Benson 16th September

The garden trap has been doing fairly well unlike my experiences trapping outside of the garden recently. Which is why the next moth came as an even bigger surprise - a Clifden Nonpareil in West Berkshire, considerably less tricky to identify than the worn Dotted Rustic a night earlier, and the highlight of the week by a country mile. The only other signs of nocturnal migration had been a handful of Diamond-back Moths and Silver Y, and Udea ferrugalis until last night when I had a Pearly Underwing to the garden trap among a fantastic catch of 251 moths of 45 species. Marc Botham, Benson



Clifden Nonpareil - West Berks 16th September

Pearly Underwing - Benson 17th September

2 comments:

  1. ooooooh! I would SO much like one of those! The Nonpareil I mean, needless to say

    all v best - had a good sesh with Mary E and the West Oxon field nats

    m

    ReplyDelete
  2. Two really nice moths there, Mark - both ones i would love to see here in Aylesbury!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.