Not a bad few nights in our garden in Wolvercote, Oxfordshire, with the temperatures up a little on where they were recently, and less wind and rain! Privet Hawkmoth has again put in an appearance, which is always quite exciting, and other summer species such as Drinker, Swallow-tailed, Dot Moth and Dingy Shears have started to show up. The same is true of micros, and I was quite pleased with this photo of an
Amblyptilia acanthadactyla with our first
Catoptria pinella of the year.
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| Catoptria pinella and Amblyptilia acanthadactyla, 4/7/16 |
As usual, a few oddities and queries: I suspect the first picture below is a Clay (we had a definite example the previous night), but the white spots look possibly round enough for, well, a White Spot; the second looks like, and is the right size for, Large Wainscot, but seems to be about four weeks early; the next I'm pretty sure is an
Anania lancealis; and the fourth presumably a
Clepsis spectrana, unless it's a rather light-coloured
Epagoge grotiana.
Steve and Xander Goddard
Hi Steve & Xander, lancealis and spectrana are both correct. I'll go along with Clay (I assume you really meant White-point for your confusion species rather than White Spot which looks completely different). The Wainscot is certainly very interesting - I can't see what else it can be other than Large but the moth doesn't usually appear locally until the end of August. However, a check of the Hants Moths website shows that they at least do have just a few records from the second week of July onwards.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dave - quite right, White-point is indeed what I meant! I think the wainscot will have to go down as Large: as you say, it's hard to see what else it can be, but it's certainly very early.
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