Apodia bifractella

Because of on-going forestry work, in order to carry out the final M40 Compensation Area butterfly transect of the year this afternoon I had to walk through Bernwood Forest from the Oakley Wood car-park rather than driving through as usual.  During the three mile round trip from car-park to site and back I inspected a large amount of fleabane in the ditches along the main forest track.  Much of it was over for the year but there were still some flowers and, contrary to expectations, in Shabbington Wood I found two rather worn examples of the gelechid Apodia bifractella feeding on them.  This is quite late for the moth, which normally flies in July and August, but it may well still be worth inspecting fleabane flowers if you have any locally because this appears to be an under-recorded species.  It does also come to light (I had some that way on Ivinghoe Beacon back in July) but daytime searching is likely to be more productive because if present they are quite easy to spot on the flowers.

Apodia bifractella, Shabbington Wood 25th September

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks