Pale Eggar

A second, rather more placid, male Pale Eggar in the garden trap the night before last allowed me to get a picture without damaged wing-tips.  Last night I ran a single MV light for the usual three hours in local ancient woodland and four more turned up, all of them female which I thought was a little unusual as I rarely see anything other than males.  All of them decided that egg-boxes were a good place to lay strings of eggs and the female I brought home to take a picture of carried on doing so during the photo-shoot!  The eggs will be released back where the females were caught.

Pale Eggar male, 27th August

Pale Eggar female, 28th August

Last night's rain didn't seem to make any difference at all to the garden catch, which comprised 291 moths of 53 species.  There was nothing exciting and the only hint of migration was from Plutella xylostella (2) and Dark Sword-grass (2).  Cacoecimorpha pronubana was the only species new for the year.

Dark Sword-grass, Westcott 28th August

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks