Berkshire all-time macro-moth list up four to 646 species

On 22 October 2020 Suzanne Parrott added the latest new species to the county macro-moth list for Berkshire: our first ever Radford's Flame Shoulder, to a moth trap near Wantage. Judging by Martin Townsend's earlier post on this blog I think this is the first record for this species in any of the three Upper Thames counties.

All credit to John Thacker for correctly picking out Suzanne's photos on iRecord as a candidate for Radford's rather than the normal Flame Shoulder, and thanks to Steve Nash for providing further confirmation. These two species are easily confused in photos, although I'm told that they look more obviously different in real life. Martin Townsend pointed out that Radford's flies later in the year than the usual species, and there is a good ID comparison on Chris Lewis's excellent British Lepidoptera website.

Radford's Flame Shoulder - photo by Suzanne Parrott

This is the fourth new macro-moth species to be added to the Berkshire list in 2020 - what a year! The others were Bernard Clark's Passenger in July (bottom left in photo below), Ian Sims' August record of Langmaid's Yellow Underwing (bottom right), and Marc Botham's September record of Clancy's Rustic (top right). For more details and to download an updated county checklist go to the Berkshire Moth Group website.

Any guesses as to the next species to be added?