Thursday 20 July 2017

Toadflax Brocade

Lots of highlights over the last fortnight in East Oxford (have added 42 species to garden list since late May) including this smart Toadflax Brocade on night of 19 July; I assume this species is rather more frequent than latest field guides suggest.

Toadflax Brocade, East Oxford, 19 July 2017

Other new for garden species included Marbled Green (16 July, a night with at least 300 Water Veneers in trap and many hundreds more on grass around it), Slender Brindle (2 July), Buff Footman (3 July) and, while not new, this migrant Dark Sword Grass was only 2nd record for me.


 Marbled Green (rescued from drowning) East Oxford 16 July 2017

Slender Brindle, East Oxford, 2 July 2017


Buff Footman and Dark Sword Grass, East Oxford, 3 July 2017

5 comments:

  1. Isn't that a Dingy Footman, Ben?

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  2. Quite possibly, though the relative shape of Dingy versus Buff seems a bit subjective to me. I thought this matched Buff fairly well - e.g.:
    http://www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds2/mothsfootman.htm
    Or are there other characters I'm overlooking?

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  3. Toadflax Brocade is spreading well throughout our three counties and in some places, mostly it seems in built-up areas, it is becoming quite common. Here in rural Westcott I still await my first garden visitor, though!

    I would have gone with Buff Footman too, but with the females there can be a superficial similarity to form stramineola of Dingy Footman so care is needed.

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  4. Glad to hear there are some slender advantages of being urban for some species!

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  5. I live in Harrow and find that Purple toadflax colonises brown field sites, unsprayed paving and driveways very quickly and seems to be getting more abundant. This may account for it becoming more regular in my traps, I also frequently see the caterpillars on these plants around the area.

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