An early Cypress Carpet

Three moths were attracted to my garden actinic light last night - a Dark Chestnut, a Spring Usher and an unexpected Cypress Carpet. I guess the milder conditions tempted it out.

Steve Trigg, Cookham

iRecord records for 2021

Spurred on by Martin Harvey's splendid illustration of the iRecord situation in VC22 Berkshire for 2021 (see here), I've produced similar maps for VC23 Oxfordshire and VC24 Buckinghamshire.    

VC23 Oxfordshire

VC24 Buckinghamshire

The first thing that you'll notice is that the number of verified records is much lower in these two counties than Berkshire's magnificent total of 43,000+, but to be fair Martin has been encouraging his Berkshire recorders to use iRecord for a lot longer!  Oxon and Bucks are more recent converts to the system and many of their more prolific recorders still use other means to send in data (as will some in Berks, so the totals here don't give any indication at all of the final counts for 2021 in each county).  However, they do serve to show that iRecord is becoming well used right across our area and we would like to encourage more recorders to try it out, especially newcomers to the fascinating world of moths.

iRecord has many benefits over simply sending in a spreadsheet at the end of the season, not least of which are the ability to spread the load by entering records throughout the year and the fact that photographs can be added very easily.  For the verifier, being able to check a potentially tricky record by looking at a picture of the moth in question, sometimes while the recorder still has it, makes life so much easier.  For the recorder, the ability to enter a list of records for a given trapping session (www.irecord.org.uk > Record > Species group forms > Moths) makes input very simple indeed and ensures that all the relevant data is included.  If you don't use iRecord already, why not give it a go in 2022?   

Dave Wilton  

Westcott, Bucks

It is turning out to be a very typical January so far as the garden here is concerned.  The three further macro species anticipated in my last post (15th) have all now turned up, with Pale Brindled Beauty and Spring Usher putting in an appearance together on the 22nd and Early Moth following on the 24th.

Pale Brindled Beauty & Spring Usher, Westcott 22nd January

Early Moth, Westcott 24th January

Two more micros have also come to the actinic light, with Agonopterix heracliana tempted out of hibernation on the 23rd and my first Tortricodes alternella of the season arriving on the 26th.

Agonopterix heracliana, Westcott 23rd January

Tortricodes alternella, Westcott 26th January

Despite 300+ garden records of Agonopterix heracliana, including regular dissections, I've never had the rather similar confusion species Agonopterix ciliella here and it seems to be quite rare in Bucks.  The moth illustrated above lacked any hint of pink scales on its underside (a feature of ciliella) and was in any case too small.

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

? Early March moth . . . .

 . . . .unless I'm very much mistaken. Herts/Bucks border last night. Is this a record?

Best wishes

David

Berkshire moth season 2022

If you want to track what's being recorded in Berkshire during the current year you can do so via the activity page for 2022 on iRecord. We're up to ten species already!: Winter Moth, Spring Usher, Mottled Umber, Brindled Pug, Common Quaker, Satellite, Ruddy Streak (Tachystola acroxantha), Chestnut, Pale Brindled Beauty and Dotted Border.

The total for 2021 on iRecord currently stands at 1,019 species, although there are still records to add, and checking remains to be done. But an impressive total in any case, and thanks to all who have sent in their records (the non-iRecord records will be caught up with when possible!).

 

More summer queries

Hi again!

A few more queries - this time from August 1st last year. I think the first two are Lunar-spotted Pinion, but would like confirmation that one of the other Pinions hasn't sneaked into my trap.

The third one I have no idea about - unless it's a very weird July Highflyer?

And is the last one Ear Moth?

Thanks in advance - guidance much appreciated!

David

 

Memories of summer!

 Hi,

Having had precisely nada in last night's trap, I've been going through some queries from last August (16th).

Can someone please confirm these? I think they are

1. Yellow-barred Brindle

2. Red Twin-spot Carpet (or could it be dark-barred???

3. July Highflyer (although nothing like the options in the book!)

Many thanks and best wishes, David

First garden moth for 2022

My first moth of the year arrived last night in the garden trap, and it was... a Common Quaker.

My previous earliest record for a Common Quaker was 19th February. At this rate, we will be recording summer moths in March. Steve Trigg, Cookham

Spring Usher

Only two moths last night, a Chestnut and this Spring Usher, which was new for the garden, and for me.

Westcott, Bucks

Things are still very quiet here, but that's always the case in January.  In the fortnight since the 1st of the month there has been a grand total of nine moths attracted to the garden actinic light from only five different species:  Acleris schalleriana, Acleris hastiana, Mottled Umber (4), Chestnut & Dark Chestnut (2).  Going on past experience I'm unlikely to see Winter Moth now until the autumn, but I would hope to get Pale Brindled Beauty, Spring Usher and Early Moth before the end of January and maybe one or two more over-wintering micros if the weather turns warm enough to tempt them out, although the forecast doesn't look too promising for the next couple of weeks.   

Acleris hastiana, Westcott 10th January

I have added one or two other species as earlier stages, including Stigmella aurella (active mines on bramble), Phyllonorycter leucographella (active mines on pyracantha) and Angle Shades (a fully grown larva).  Finding Angle Shades caterpillars walking across the lawn towards the light in January or February seems to be almost an annual occurrence here.

 

Mine of Phyllonorycter leucographella, Westcott 7th January
 (active striped larva visible at lower end of mine).

Caterpillar of Angle Shades, Westcott 7th January

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Getting started for 2022.

 The last mild night, which unfortunately turned drizzly, I put a light out in the back garden. (Spurred on by Martin Albertini to try for Black-spotted Chestnut). No such luck, as yet, but three moths did appear, all in decent condition:

Acleris schalleriana, Spring Usher and Mottled Umber.

The Acleris escaped. 

Latest moth report for Maidenhead, from Les Finch and Martin Finch

Les and Martin have produced the latest of their annual reports for their home tetrad in Maidenhead. This includes lots of intriguing data and comments on how 2021 compares with other years, links between weather conditions and number of moths seen, and information on particular species of interest. A fascinating read, available from the Berkshire Moth Group website.

 

Black-spotted Chestnut

For now at least, Robin Knill-Jones continues to be the only known recorder in our area getting Black-spotted Chestnut Conistra rubiginosa, a situation that must surely change sometime soon!  So far this winter his garden trap in Denham, Bucks has produced the moth on 19th November (1), 22nd November (2), 23rd November (1), 12th December (2) & 29th December (1), then for this year one sometime between 31st December and 4th January and another two - the only moths caught - sometime between 4th and 8th January.  They seem quite happy to fly on really cold nights.  Many of them were marked before release and to date none has re-appeared which is encouraging.

Black-spotted Chestnut, Denham

2021 figures for a Newton Longville garden. Part 3: lights

During 2020, I ran an experiment to compare the effectiveness of an actinic light against my own design of LED light.  I posted several times about this in 2020, with the end-of-year results here.  My conclusion was that LEDs could be at least as effective as actinic lights, probably better.  I have continued this comparison during 2021, always running the two lights on the same night as each other, in different parts of the garden, but swapping over the lights between the two positions on successive trapping nights.  There is a plot twist, but I'll start with a straight comparison of the 2021 results for each light against the 2020 figures in my garden at home.

The presentation of the data is different from last year: there was rather less trapping in the peak summer season of 2021, so instead of gross totals of species and moths, I have converted these to average numbers of species and moths per night.  I have also broken the data into a number of different seasons.  The dates were carefully selected: the second period starts when I changed the actinic light in 2021 (see below); the third period starts when (at last) in 2021 the cold spring ended and the number of species caught in a night rose above 20; the third period ended on my return from France (in both years), which coincides with the reversion of the actinic light to its original type; and the fourth period finishes with the end of meteorological autumn.

Comparison of results in my Newton Longville garden 2020/2021

As I observed in my first post reviewing 2021, numbers were down in the spring of 2021 (second period in the table): the cold weather led to fewer moths of fewer species.  However, the actinic light seems to have been slightly less affected than the LED.

For the first, fourth and fifth periods, the performance of both types of lights in 2021 was similar to what it had been in 2020. However, there is something striking in the summer period (with the paler background in the table).  The LED figures are not markedly different between 2020 and 2021: it's the actinic figures (orange text) that are very much better in 2021 than they were in 2020.  On average, in the summer of 2021 the actinic light caught each night 28% more moths of 65% more species than in 2020, and out-performed the LED light by a smallish margin.

I mentioned that period 2 began when I changed the actinic light and period 3 ended when I reverted to the previous version.  In mid-March, the actinic strip light was broken in high winds.  Acting on advice received the previous summer from mothing friends in France, I replaced it with the Synergetic variety.  A Synergetic light is essentially the same as a normal blue-white actinic - in fact it is identical in physical dimensions and electrically - but the phosphor coating of the tube includes an additional green element.  There is evidence (references to papers on request) that at least some moth species have eyes that are sensitive to green wavelengths as well as to UV and blue (and sometimes red).  As far as I know, Synergetic lights only come as straight tubes and not as compact bulbs: this is because their principal use is in insect-zappers in restaurants and similar locations.

I continued using the Synergetic light from mid-March 2021 until I took it to my in-laws house in France in July.  After using it there, I intentionally left it there and reverted to a normal blue-white actinic when I got back to Newton Longville, which I continued to use until the end of 2021.

The Synergetic seems to have been very much better in the third (summer) period of 2021 compared to the actinic in 2020, but this effect isn't clear in the second (spring) period when the weather was the predominant effect.

In both 2020 and 2021, I also trapped at the house in France: using the blue-white actinic in 200 and the Synergetic in 2021.  Here is a comparison of the results there.  Although I had also used an LED light in France in 2020, I did not use it in 2021, so I have omitted the figures for that.

Comparison of results in France

The French data should be treated with caution as I only ran the traps on very few occasions, so there may be a notable effect of random variation.  Nevertheless, I think I can confidently say that Synergetic lights are very substantially more effective at attracting moths than the normal types of actinics.  I will be using a Synergetic for 2022.

I haven't yet run an analysis to see if the advantages of the Synergetic compared to the actinic are concentrated on specific moth families: if I find anything significant there, I will write another post on this blog.

Tim Arnold

Newton Longville, Bucks

Sibford 2021

Despite trapping for 22 more nights than in 2020 both numbers of moths and species were down. Although I recorded some noteworthy macros these were mostly second or third garden records and there were only, a disappointing, 3 species new to the garden to light. Micros were much better with at least 26 new ones to light with hopefully a few more to add once dissections have been completed.

As others have noted many of the common moths showed the biggest decrease in numbers.

Using pheromone lures for the first time far exceeded expectations with 7 clearwing species in the garden with Raspberry Clearwing being the most notable. In addition the FUN lure brought in 7 species including new for the garden Grapholita tenebrosana, Pammene giganteana, P. suspectana and P. aurana.

Andy Newbold, Sibford Ferris, Oxon.

Monopis hindwing

 Following on from my post of January 1st I now have an image on the hindwing of the Monopis.

I don't know whether this is clear enough to help further with its identification or whether it need to be kept for the next batch for Peter to dissect.

Andy Newbold, Sibford Ferris, Oxon.

2021 figures for a Newton Longville garden. Part 2: species

In this post, I'll comment on changes to individual species recorded in my garden in 2021 compared to 2020: I haven't been trapping for long enough to make an extended comparison.  With one exception, I am ignoring species that appear on few occasions or in small numbers: their fluctuations are unlikely to be significant.

If I don't apply this "significance" threshold, then random variations become very distracting: for example, a total of 79 species appeared in 2021 that I hadn't found in 2020, but 96 of 2020's species weren't found in 2021.  Those 79 species only represent 176 individuals, or fewer than 5% of the total catch for the year.

One of the species that I found on multiple occasions in 2021 having been completely absent in 2020 was Small Square-spot.  Common Rustic/Lesser Common Rustic is supposed to be very common, so I will make an exception to my "significance" threshold and report that having had just a handful in 2019 and none in 2020, I managed three individuals in 2021.  It is surprisingly uncommon in my neck of the woods; my reduced frequency of trapping in June-August is probably only a part of the reason.

In the opposite sense, species that were absent in 2021 having been significantly present in 2020 include Clepsis consimilana, Hedya pruniana, Sallow, Brown-line Bright-eye and Scarce Footman.

Setaceous Hebrew Character had the biggest increase in absolute numbers (from 90 to 254); Lunar Underwing, Chrysoteuchia culmella and Heart & Dart went in the opposite direction (respectively 847 to 318, 608 to 129 and 447 to 69).

In percentage increase terms, Green Carpet, Garden Carpet and Riband Wave had a good year in 2021.  On the other hand, Shuttle-shaped Dart, Large Nutmeg and Brown-spot Pinion were amongst 19 species that had a decline of more than 50%.  In addition to Chrysoteuchia culmella mentioned above, other grass moths also fared badly - probably due not only to less trapping when they were flying in 2021, but also to a very local factor.  There were changes in the timing of the grazing of the next-door field: unlike the previous year, it was very short during late summer and autumn 2020 when 2021's adults would have been larvae.

In moving on to flight periods, I should emphasise that I only trap once or twice a week, so some timing changes can just be down to different dates when I had the traps out as well as to random chance.  However, I do see one change where I would have expected one:

The cooler and wetter spring of 2021 seemed to result in many spring-flying moths first appearing in my traps about three to five weeks later than in the good weather of 2020.  For example, Heart and Dart was 26 days later in 2021 and Poplar Grey was 20 days later.

A number of Orthosia species hung around later in 2021: Small Quaker, Clouded Drab, Powdered Quaker and Hebrew Character carried on flying for another 10 to 20 days, generally well into May 2021 although in 2020 they had mostly disappeared by the third week of April.  Common Quaker, though, actually disappeared 10 days earlier in 2021.

Dates for autumn-flying moths showed no large or consistent differences between 2020 and 2021.

A total of 65 species (25 macro and 40 micro) joined the garden list in 2021 - my third full, proper year of mothing.  The garden (& house) list now stands at 246 macros and 173 micros.

Apart from Nemapogon granella - which is a story on its own - I recorded no unusual or scarce species in VC24: even Clifden Nonpareil eluded me.  So - not counting a nice record in France - I am contenting myself with a surprise last evening when the VC66 CMR told me that my photographically-supported record of a Coronet on an otherwise very poor night in late June was only the fourth record for County Durham.

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks

Stigmella carpinella

 Catching up with unidentified specimens from the past year this week I was given an unexpected surprise: 

Upon dissection this turned out to be Stigmella carpinella. Since my garden has loads of the larval foodplant in it (Hornbeam) the surprise was that I had not seen it before. 

However, it seems not many people have. I believe it has been identified in Bucks before, but I'm not too sure how many times. In the south-east of Bucks, I am 150 metres from Hertfordshire, where it has been registered once (an hour away in the far east) and several websites have it down as a proposed red data book species. 

Well well. 

Acleris notana/ferrugana

 Just looking for confirmation?? Thanks, David

Not the best of starts

Having managed to go through December without a single blank it was rather disappointing not to get anything at all to the actinic light at Westcott overnight on 1st January, especially considering that it remained so mild.  So, just to get me off the mark in the garden for this year, before the rain came this afternoon I spent five minutes outside looking at bramble leaves and, sure enough, found four active mines of Stigmella aurella straight away.  The larvae can be found feeding throughout the winter months and at this time of year there is no possible confusion with Stigmella splendidissimella.  

Mine of Stigmella aurella on bramble, Westcott 2nd January

I did get to see some adult moths on 1st January, though, because I decided to take a single MV trap to nearby Finemere Wood and ran it there for the usual three hours.  Only six species put in an appearance, comprising Acleris ferrugana/notana, Winter Moth, Mottled Umber, Spring Usher, Early Moth and Satellite.  It will get better...!

Early Moth, Finemere Wood 1st January

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks  

Black-spotted Chestnut in Herts

 I see that Black-spotted Chestnut was recorded in Herts yesterday (per iSpot), and confirmed by Colin Plant, so fingers crossed for a mega start to the UTB year!

2021 figures for a Newton Longville garden. Part 1: totals

I delayed finalising the analysis of my 2021 records until the very end of the year: the mild weather allowed me to run the traps on both 29th and 31st December.  Those two nights yielded a grand total of four moths: a late Scrobipalpa costella was the only Lepidopteran point of interest, but two diving beetles (Colymbetes fuscus) last night were the first I have seen here.

During 2020, I ran an experiment to compare the effectiveness of an actinic light against my own design of LED light.  I posted several times about this, summarising the year here.  I continued this comparison during 2021, but I will discuss that analysis in a couple of posts over the coming days.

In all of my analysis, it is important not to read too much into it: these are figures for moths caught in just one garden, comparing just two years.  There is a lot of chance involved as well as other factors such as weather.

Here is a comparison of the total 2021 records for my garden and a comparison with those for 2020. These figures include moths found in association with the moth traps as well as moths and larvae found elsewhere in the garden or indoors.  Commentary on individual species will be in another post.

The keen-eyed may spot that the 2020 figures presented above are slightly different from those that I originally published a year ago, mainly because I'm including non-trapped moths.  I have spent part of the Christmas break automating the annual analysis job, so it only took me 5 minutes to re-state the 2020 figures on a comparable basis to 2021.

Numbers were down in 2021: many fewer moths of slightly fewer species.  There were two main factors behind this.

One real-world factor was the poor spring in 2021 compared to the fine, sunny spring during lockdown in 2020.  On the nights on which I ran the traps (which is hardly a random sample: I select nights of better weather), it was 4½ °C colder in April 2021 than a year before, and 1½ °C cooler in May.  Met Office data for whole months at Cambridge shows somewhat smaller temperature differences than this, but it also shows just 3 days of frost in 2020 compared to 14 in 2021.  This was probably why in these two months of 2021 the traps caught just one quarter of the number of moths per night compared to what they had achieved in 2020, and between a third and a half of the number of species.

The second and larger cause of difference was a reduced amount of trapping effort in the peak June/July/August period.  A very rough calculation indicates that the effect of this on the total number of moths for the year is perhaps twice as big as the effect of the spring weather.  In normal years I am away a lot in spring and summer; the last two years have not been normal, but I was away rather more in June and July 2021 than in the same period in 2020.  Consequently, I only ran the traps at home seven times during June-August 2021 compared to thirteen times in the same months of 2020.

Complicating the analysis is the fact that there was a difference in lights between the two years which only applied between April and July and which seems to have made the 2021 figures better than they would otherwise have been.  I am still trying to separate the effect of this factor ("Synergetic" versus normal actinic lights), which will make for another post later.

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks

Query from last trap of 2021!

 Happy New Year  Thank you for helping me out with id throughout 2021 and for so many interesting blogs about moths in our area.
The mild last night of the year brought 4 moths to my trap including one that I'm struggling to identify. So once again I'm asking for id help please for this moth with very even colouring.

Many thanks once again.

Last moth of 2021

 Just a solitary moth on the outside of the trap this morning.

I think it is probably Monopis obviella (8.5mm in length) although I have not checked the hindwings.

If so it would be a new garden record and a nice way to end the year as long as I keep quiet about it being a "clothes moth"!

Andy Newbold, Sibford Ferris, Oxon.