Upper Thames Moths: Westcott, Bucks

After a few days away in North Wales seeing nice moths such as Grey Chi and Feathered Ranunculus, my first Lunar Underwing of the season turned up in the garden on 11th September. I await the deluge... There has been nothing else new for the year-list recently but there have been one or two interesting moths all the same, even if the images below all seem to be of boring brown jobs!

Since the 10th I've recorded 22 different adult micro species in the garden which seems to me to be quite a good total for the time of year. Amongst them was Ypsolopha horridella which was the fourth example of the year for the garden after others in July and August. On the 11th I had a fresh-looking specimen of one of the "lesser-spotted" Yponomeuta species which might suggest cagnagella but I'm not hopeful of getting that ID confirmed. I've never found larvae on the spindle we have in the garden here. Cochylis molliculana continues to appear regularly and has been by far the most common Cochylis species in the garden this year having only made its first appearance in 2017.

Ypsolopha horridella, Westcott 11th September

More than 40 different macro species have been recorded over the same period, including Dark Sword-grass which appeared in the trap on the 10th and 11th (the first was probably the darkest example I've ever seen). Another Bulrush Wainscot was caught on the 12th while a second-brood Mottled Rustic was found in the trap last night (13th). I had September and October records of Mottled Rustic last year but otherwise just one September record in 2006, so an attempt at a second brood doesn't seem to be an annual occurrence just yet locally.