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Monday, 15 June 2020

South Bucks moth Safari

I had a day off today, purely to kick back, escape from Harrow and do some low key mothing, in my old stamping ground.

Starting out at 10am trying for Hornet Moth around the poplars in Denham Country Park car park and failing, with none seen on the trunks and none responding to the lure. However 8 Orange-tailed Clearwings arrived within minutes of putting out the VES Lure.

Next stop Chalfont Heights to have another look for the Forester Moths, better luck this time with plenty seen on Knapweed and Umbellifers (not sure which one), I couldn't find any scabious - maybe looking in a different place. The foresters were joined by Six-spot Burnets and a whole cast or beetles, hoverflies and Damselflies..
 
 
Lastly a trip down to the allotments behind the Community Centre at the bottom of Chalfont St Peter. It took all of 30 seconds for a Currant Clearwing to appear, this is a new one for me and gosh aren't they small.
Robert Payne

5 comments:

  1. Interesting Robert, sounds like you had Foresters in the field where I couldn't find any yesterday. The ones I had wee in the western field to the north of the entrance footpath - scabious and oxeye daises in that one.

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  2. Hi Adam, I walked through from the Joiner's lane end, and found most of the moths in the area on the left as soon as you get to the "fields" before you get to the barbed wire fence. Mind you its a toss up whether the oaks will take over before the developers move in.

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  3. I had Orange-tailed (4) and Red-tipped (1) to the appropriate lures in the garden today but the HOR and TIP pheromones were out all day with no luck - as usual in the case of HOR! Currant (to TIP) are usually the most regular of the Clearwings here so I'm surprised I haven't seen anything of them yet, but I shall persevere!

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  4. Hi Robert, Your Currant Clearwing does not have the parallel yellow lines on the thorax, which I had understood distinguishes it from the Sallow Clearwing - but do these lines tend to wear off or not always occur on the Currant species? I ask this in part because there was a report on iRecord for VC22 of one with only a single yellow line (which I considered was probably worn and therefore correctly assigned to Currant Clearwing).

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    Replies
    1. Currant also has a yellow collar, which Sallow does not - the photo shows a yellow collar.

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