Last night's garden trap yielded my first Feathered Thorn of the year.
The rest of the catch was probably fairly typical of what other people are finding - Red-green Carpet(7), Common Marbled Carpet(1), November Moth agg.(12), Blair's Shoulder-knot(2), Green-brindled Crescent(3), Red-line Quaker(2), Yellow-line Quaker(1), Beaded Chestnut(1), Barred Sallow(1), Light Brown Apple Moth(3) and Hypsopygia glaucinalis(1).
Finally, there was one moth shown below that has defeated me. The forewing measured 11mm, and I am assuming it is a micro? All suggestions very welcome.
Steve Trigg, Cookham
Hi Steve, your micro looks to me as if it could be a washed-out male Ostrinia nubilalis but I think it might need a close inspection to be sure. I'm not sure about the status of nubilalis in Berkshire but in Bucks, where there less than 20 records, it would probably still be regarded as a migrant (five of those records were in 2006, which was the last really good migrant year). However, because we've had so many odd second broods this year, I'm not sure that Opsibotys fuscalis can be discounted as a possibility (listed as Anania fuscalis in the micro book, where in my opinion the image leaves a lot to be desired!).
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. Ostrinia nubilalis is a moth I have seen before, but in mid-summer. One appeared outside my kitchen window in June this year, and last year one found its way into my living room in early July.
DeleteI still have the moth, so I will add it to a small collection of others that I am sending to Peter in the near future.
It's dangerous to make definitive statements from photographs but the FW length is too small for nubilalis which I think always has at least some yellow on it. I immediately thought fuscalis and I'm 99% sure that's what it is.
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