Strange results last night

Last night I ran a couple of MV traps in some woodland on the Waddesdon Estate, adjacent to home.  Regular visits there this year have already proved quite interesting for the species they have turned up but last night took the biscuit - why would I get no less than 28 Four-spotted Footman moths in a wood in the middle of Bucks, well away from their coastal haunts?  I can't have been that lucky with migrants!  Seven of them were female too and it is nearly always the spot-free males that seem to turn up as migrants.  I assume that the species now has a previously unknown toe-hold here as part of its continuing range expansion.

Four-spotted Footman female, Waddesdon Estate 11th July

Four-spotted Footman male, Waddesdon Estate 11th July

The other unexpected sighting at this hill-top location was of four Balsam Carpets.  This is perhaps more easily understood because the River Thame is only two kilometres away and it flows through Rothschild land at Eythrope where the Estate has done quite a lot of work in establishing wetland habitats.  For four individuals to have found their way uphill to this particular wood suggests that there must be quite a significant population along the river itself.

Balsam Carpet, Waddesdon Estate 11th July

Otherwise the catch was much as expected with more than 150 species, most of which you'd get in any woodland in this area, although it was good also to see Fern, Pretty Chalk Carpet and Haworth's Pug once again well away from their usual Chilterns haunts.  Amongst the highest counts were Large Twin-spot Carpet (26), Buff Footman (56), Double Square-spot (83) & Coronet (31).  A count of nine Box-tree Moths Cydalima perspectalis was a sign of the times and suggests that any box hedges in the formal gardens around Waddesdon Manor may now be under threat. 

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks