The season continues to move on: Square-spot Rustic has almost entirely given way to Lunar Underwing in my garden, with a generous dollop of Large Yellow Underwing. A few more interesting moths have also arrived, the first of which seems to be a Scarce Bordered Straw.
Moving from rather drab species to smarter-looking ones: on Wednesday night, I had a colourful mix of Barred Sallow, Pink-barred Sallow and Orange Sallow. Autumnal Rustic has started to put in its annual handful of records: three so far, on two nights.
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| Scarce Bordered Straw Newton Longville, 21 September 2022 |
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| Autumnal Rustic NL, 21 September 2022 |
I also had what I think is Ditula angustiorana on the 19th, although it was not in good shape. It's very late for its main season, but the field guide mentions a partial second brood in September-October, so perhaps that's what it was.
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| Ditula angustiorana? Newton Longville, 19 September 2022 |
I also try to identify and record as many as possible of the other insects that come to light and now that I have fewer species of moth to deal with, I can spend a bit more time on those. In the last couple of weeks, I have had quite a few caddisflies (Limnephilus lunatus, L. flavicornis, L. auricula, L. bipunctatus, Agraylea sp., Stenophylax permistus). Although I don't normally attempt some groups, I managed the smart soldierfly Sargus bipunctatus (a male and a female on different nights) and have tentative IDs for a fungus gnat - Macrocera phalerata - and an ichneumon - Cratichneumon viator - although in both cases I'd need a microscope and appropriate keys in order to get a confident ID, so they won't be going onto iRecord. Both of those last two species have interesting antennae: the fungus gnat has very long antennae and the ichneumon has a white band in the centre of the antennae.
Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks
Hello Tim,
ReplyDeleteScarce Bordered Straw is correct, another nice migrant.
Autumnal Rustic is on the "wish-list" for my garden but it doesn't seem to like the heavy clay soils around here, although I did get a likely wanderer in Bernwood Forest last year. It prefers the chalk and greensand in Bucks so there are good numbers at Rammamere Heath and, even closer to you, I trapped several along what was then the disused railway cutting near Mursley back in 2009 (now, of course, covered in concrete in advance of becoming East-West Rail).
The micro is a rather worn example of Archips podana which has an annual second brood locally at this time of year.
Thanks, Dave. I'm not sure how I missed Archips podana as it turns up here three or four times a year.
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