Very early 60th

Last night saw Common Wave and Knot Grass come to the actinic trap here at Westcott, taking the total number of macro-moth species recorded in the garden this year to 60.  Nothing much to shout about there, you might think, but certainly for at least the previous ten years that total has never been achieved so early in the season and only once before in April: 

2007	5th May	Garden Carpet	2012	22nd May	Mottled Pug
2008	11th May	Clouded-bordered Brindle	2013	30th May	Common Wave
2009	10th May	Green Carpet	2014	9th May	Iron Prominent
2010	20th May	Grass Rivulet	2015	10th May	Orange Footman
2011	28th April	White Ermine	2016	17th May	Knot Grass

While counts will vary from site to site, this has certainly been a very unusual year so far with many species appearing far earlier than is normal.  The average date to achieve 60 macros here is 13th May.

Knot Grass, Westcott 23rd April

Another Acronicta species was the only thing of interest to an MV trap run for the usual three hours in Bernwood Forest last night where an early Alder Moth put in an appearance (I won't go on about how the Met Office got their forecast of night-time cloud cover completely wrong yet again...).  The very chilly conditions didn't seem to affect either Lesser Swallow Prominent or Great Prominent which were still arriving as I packed up (final counts of 10 and 44 respectively) but there was nothing else of note.

Alder Moth, Bernwood Forest 23rd April

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks