Westcott, Bucks

Although moth numbers have picked up over the past couple of nights thanks to the overnight minimum temperature being a degree or two warmer (402 moths of 62 species last night, for example), there has still been little of interest in the garden.  Only three nights out of the past eight have produced anything new for the year-list:

(15th)  Square-spot Rustic
(17th)  Bactra lancealana, August Thorn, Six-striped Rustic, Nutmeg
(21st)  Agriphila geniculea, Pale Eggar, Frosted Orange

Agriphila geniculea, Westcott 21st August

Frosted Orange, Westcott 21st August

I've had a dozen different "grass moth" species here and Agriphila geniculea is actually one of the less common ones (if I get 15 or 20 in a season I'm doing really well).  Another one to look out for now is Agriphila latistria with its broad white band running right through to the termen.  It is not at all common in our area but has appeared twice in the garden during the last week of August, once in 2016 and once in 2018.  Frosted Orange was the first appearance here by one of the autumn-coloured moths and I expect Centre-barred Sallow any day now to indicate that summer really is over!  I would have added a photo of the Pale Eggar, a regular here, but the individual on the 21st had dived into dew-drenched grass near the trap (presumably to escape the local bats) and as a result lost a lot of scales.  I'm sure to get another.    

Numbers of Large Yellow Underwing are increasing quite rapidly (50 last night) and it has now overtaken Setaceous Hebrew Character, Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing and Vine's Rustic as the most numerous macro, but they're still out-numbered by the micro Agriphila tristella (62 last night).  Square-spot Rustic is appearing nightly but only in single-digit counts and has yet to take off properly.  I've also had one or two Small Square-spots over the past few nights but that is a moth of "peaks and troughs" here and I doubt if a resurgence is underway yet.  The last peak was in 2016 when I had 864 here during the year.  2017 produced 344, 2018 just 29 and I suspect there'll be even fewer this year before a recovery sets in.

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks