The moth shown below was unexpectedly found indoors at Ched George's house in Radnage, Bucks this morning. Fern shouldn't be on the wing until May so this one has appeared several weeks earlier than normal.
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| Fern, Radnage 25th March |
Ched believes it will have flown in when the front door was opened rather than have emerged indoors. He has the larval food-plant Traveller's Joy Clematis vitalba in the front garden and some recent fencing renewal work adjacent to it may have caused sufficient disturbance to prompt this early emergence.
From the photo it appears closer to Fern Horisme tersata rather than the recently-arrived Cryptic Fern Horisme radicaria but it will undergo genitalia examination anyway because that is the only safe way to tell them apart. During the 2020 flight period a number of specimens in Bucks were dissected in the search for the new species but all proved to be tersata. So far as we're aware radicaria has still only been found in Kent and Sussex.
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