Merveilleux!

So there I was, sat in the still-pouring rain this morning in the garden in Wolvercote, Oxfordshire, going through increasingly sodden eggboxes and wondering what it was all about, when I turned one over and found this underneath it:

Merveille du Jour, 24/9/17

This is a species I've coveted ever since taking up trapping, and which I'd more or less abandoned hope of ever getting here: something of a Monday morning booster!

In fact, it turns out to be the second lifer here in two days: I hadn't registered that an Orange Sallow from yesterday was the first we've ever had, too:

Orange Sallow, 23/9/17

And I'm fairly certain, bearing in mind the discussion below, that the creature below is a straightforward Deep-brown Dart, not its Northern counterpart:

Deep-brown Dart, 24/9/17

Like others, I found that the catch last night, although small by many standards, was a significant improvement on recent nights, irrespective of the rain, with 58 individuals of 23 species (if one counts a Red Admiral found taking shelter in the trap!) - and a couple of other NFYs as well as those above: Beaded Chestnut and Brown-spot Pinion; also a pleasing catch of five Black Rustics, which seem to be having a good year. It does look rather as though my earlier hopes for a full year-list of 400+ species were wildly optimistic: numbers of new species rather fell off a cliff in August, due to a combination of frequent absences and poor weather, and as it is, I'm only just about at 350 - maybe another ten or a dozen autumn species might yet show up, but that's about it, I should imagine. Still, it's better than last year...

Steve Goddard