More variety

 After a couple of poor results - Friday night had unexpected mizzle and I caught only 17 moths of eight species - I was pleasantly surprised by last night (Sunday).  In all there were 32 moths of sixteen species. Some common species turned up that have been absent for a couple of weeks, such as Setaceous Hebrew Character, Deep-brown Dart and Shuttle-shaped Dart, but there were others of more interest.

I was happy to catch a Figure of Eight: it arrived around midnight when I was looking at the traps and it seems to have been confused by my head torch, flying around and only very briefly landing before it disappeared again. However, it came back a minute or two later and perched on the sheet long enough for me to pot it.

Figure of Eight, Newton Longville 18 October

A Dark Arches was a surprise find in the LED trap this morning. The Field Guide mentions that there is sometimes a partial second generation in the south, but interestingly there is no sign of this in the phenology chart in the Atlas of the Larger Moths.

Dark Arches
Newton Longville 18 October

There was a new species for the garden list: a Large Wainscot.

Large Wainscot
Newton Longville 18 October

I'll resist the temptation to add a photo of one of the four Merveilles du Jour from last night. I'm not sure why its "English" name is French: it's interesting that another moth with a French name (the Clifden Nonpareil) is also a glamorous moth. Amusingly, in France the vernacular name for Griposia aprilina is not "la Merveille du Jour": it's "la Runique" (presumably because the black marks look a bit like runes).

Tim Arnold

Newton Longville, Bucks