Yet another week goes by with little to show for it, the average catch over the last seven nights here at Westcott being six moths of four species to the actinic trap. While others may also have seen a very slight improvement in diversity over the past two or three nights thanks to cloud cover which hid that bright full moon, I think most of us will be very glad to see the back of this very cold and very dry April. Not that the first half of May looks an awful lot better, but at least there 'should' be a gradual warming-up with no more overnight frosts!
An Angle Shades on the 26th was the first adult of that species to be recorded this year although it has already been counted on the garden list thanks to a larval sighting back in January. However, Chinese Character, Brimstone Moth & Chocolate-tip (all 27th), Knot Grass (28th) and Early Tooth-striped & Puss Moth (29th) were new here for 2021.
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| Chinese Character, Westcott 27th April |
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| Puss Moth, Westcott 29th April |
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| Chocolate-tip, Westcott 27th April |
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| Knot Grass, Westcott 28th April |
Neither Early Tooth-striped nor Puss Moth are guaranteed annual visitors here. The former was the first for three years, while the latter (a smart male) was actually the sixth year in a row that Puss Moth has made a garden appearance but before that it was rarely seen.
Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks
Those are some smart-looking moths, Dave.
ReplyDeleteRoll on May, I say. April has been such a disappointing month this year, compared to the same month last year and indeed also in comparison to March this year. With similar amounts of trapping effort, April 2021 stands at 81 moths of 14 species, compared to 211 moths of 29 species in April 2020 and to 316 moths of 26 species in March 2021.
On Monday night, the two traps combined yielded just a single Clouded Drab between them. I'm giving April one last chance to redeem itself tonight, but with no expectations of success.