Westcott, Bucks

In the garden here nightly species numbers have remained in the teens over the past week although the overall number of moths has fluctuated considerably.  Last night was quite a good night with 85 individuals from 19 species coming to the actinic light:  Emmelina monodactyla (2), Red-green Carpet (4), November Moth agg. (6), Green-brindled Crescent (8), Angle Shades (1), Pink-barred Sallow (2), Sallow (7), Dusky-lemon Sallow (1), Beaded Chestnut (5), Brick (7), Lunar Underwing (9), Chestnut (4), Dark Chestnut (2), Satellite (1), Blair's Shoulder-knot (1), Merveille du Jour (1), Black Rustic (12), Large Yellow Underwing (11) & Setaceous Hebrew Character (1).  The cumulative total for Lunar Underwing here this year has now reached 2,298 while that for Black Rustic is currently on 867 (already more than twice last year's record count).  Last night's November Moth agg. collection included my first two females of the season. 

November Moth agg. female, Westcott 20th October

The females of all the Epirrita species have a much more curved costa and are often much more brightly marked than the males.  The downside is that they can't be separated, even by dissection, so the only way to be sure of which species you have is to rear their eggs.  As mentioned in the field guide, the males can be separated fairly easily by looking at the protrusions on the underside of the penultimate segment of the abdomen through a hand lens or under a microscope and this is how I managed to confirm the year's first Pale November Moth for the garden on 18th October.  They'll all be recorded as the aggregate from now on but I shall keep my eyes open for Autumnal Moth which does appear here although hasn't been positively confirmed for a couple of years.  It will need checking in the same way but candidates seem to be large well-marked moths with a fairly obvious discal spot (as on the female above).

One other adult moth new for the season has been an early Mottled Umber, of which a singleton came to light on the 16th although I've not had any more as yet:

Mottled Umber, Westcott 16th October

Sprawler is overdue now and then in a couple of weeks it should be December Moth and Scarce Umber to round off the season.  Despite my best intentions, as usual I'm way behind with getting my records into MapMate so don't yet have an accurate picture of what 2019 has been like.  However, I do try and keep a running tally of garden species and that is currently on 620 for the year (dissections will eventually add significantly to the total).  The macro-moth count is 339 and should end on at least 342 which will be the garden's best ever annual total.  These figures alone suggest it has been quite a good year!   

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks