Slim pickings

Last night's rather poor collection of moths to the trap (13 individuals of only nine species) still brought me Iron Prominent and Silver Y as additions to the site year-list.  The tortrix Ancylis badiana was found in the garden during the daytime yesterday while the tiny but very common Glyphipterix simpliciella was added today - keep searching those daisy flowers in the lawn!  Hopefully the next three much warmer nights should see a significant improvement in catches for everyone.

Iron Prominent, Westcott 6th May

Silver Y, Westcott 6th May

Glyphipterix simpliciella, Westcott 7th May

Further to Martin's comments about light-coloured male Muslin Moths, I'm up to 45 males in the garden now since the first on 10th April and I still haven't seen one anything like the picture he published on 22nd April (see here).  Mine have all been the standard dark grey with very little variation at all apart from the number of spots.

Finally, I had my first Common Cockchafer Melolontha melolontha of the year in the trap last night, so this is a plea especially to newcomers to moths not to completely ignore the other things which come to light at night.  Many aren't identifiable without expert help but some of the larger and more obvious beetles in particular can be safely named.  The Cockchafer is one, while the large, rather smelly and often mite-infested Sexton Beetles can also be identified quite easily and their various recording schemes will be very pleased to receive the details via iRecord (with a photo if at all possible). 

Common Cockchafer, Westcott 6th May

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks