Tipping out the dust and dead bodies from the trap this morning I spotted one last moth and retrieved it at the last moment. Pleased I did as it turned out to be a species I've not seen before: Clavigesta purdeyi:
Waring and Townsend say it's 'common'. Hmm. And, if I did see one I wouldn't have expected to spot it in my back garden. Very small for a Tortrix, but its caterpillars mine pine needles, so not, perhaps, surprising.
One of the earliest moths to turn up, on the sheet next to the trap, was this one:
A long way from A1 condition, this, but the best I can do is Sharp-angled Carpet. It's ID doesn't exactly shout out, but I think I'm right. And, again, not one I've seen before. I wonder if this was an immigrant.
A trio of immaculate Pammene aurita brightened up the catch:
54 species last night and a few more still to identify.
I think the carpet is perhaps Balsam Carpet
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ben, Andy. That looks to be a very good match for the summer generation Balsam Carpets I've seen locally (try doing a Google image search because the illustration in the Field Guide perhaps isn't as helpful as it could be).
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Yes, I'm sure you're both right. The curious thing is it looked much greyer under house lights than in the photo and I rejected Balsam Carpet because it looked closer to the spring generation. But I obviously didn't look hard enough!
DeleteBTW: When I wrote 'Waring and Townsend' I obviously should have said 'Sterling and Parsons'. Error-strewn post all round.
ReplyDeleteStill an interesting post though! I've just checked up on Clavigesta purdeyi (a tiny but really smart tortrix) and I seem to have had 16 records of it in Bucks of which half have been from the garden and there's no conifer woodland around here for some miles. The only pines are occasional garden trees but they still seem able to manage to produce Cedestis species, Dioryctrias and all three common Rhyacionias, etc which appear regularly on the garden list.
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