New Year's Eve trio

My long torpor in posting has been ended by my irrepressibly entomological granddaughter who demanded that I light the lamp last night. She was rewarded with these three moths, three more than her aged grandpa was expecting.

They conformed nicely to the three types of Mottled Umber shown in the Moth Bible, although she was outraged by the flightless, unimpressive role allocated to the female. I tried to console her with suggestions that the latter led a safer and more comfortable life than her menfolk but in vain. At nine, you want to fly.

Happy New Year all!  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

Stowe moths 2022

At the end of 2022, my third year of moth recording, the garden total now stands at 517. The total for the year was 436, of which 102 were new, (38 macro, 64 micro). Light trapping was done on 174 nights with a 20W actinic and a 120W MV—some nights with both, but on a number of nights just the MV, whilst the actinic was deployed off-site in local woodland. Best night was 17 July with 350 moths of 100 species across the two traps.
Lunar Underwing returned to being the most numerous species, having dropped to #6 in the ranking last year. Square-spot Rustic has rapidly climbed the ranks from 12^th place in 2020, to 7^th last year, to second most numerous in 2022. Most numerous micro was Chrysoteuchia culmella as it has been every year.
Highlights included: Evergestis limbata, a first for Bucks, and based on iRecord data this seems to be the furthest NW UK sighting, apart from a couple of sites in Leicestershire, one of which seems to have recorded the species almost annually for the past five years. 

Clifden Nonpareil, (finally!); Dusky-lemon Sallow, with only one prior (1963) record in the whole of northwest Bucks up to the end of 2020; and three new clearwing species—Sallow Clearwing, Currant Clearwing and Hornet Moth, (with exit holes of the latter found in the base of a mature poplar), bringing the garden clearwing total to eight species.

As to migrants, several Rusty-dot Pearls and Vestals put in an appearance, both new to the garden, with the latter apparently being the first records for the hectad according to the Atlas. It was also good to add some more identified cnephasia and coleophora species to the list, thanks to Peter, as well as a few expected species that had not so far put in an appearance, such as Twenty-plume Moth, Blossom Underwing, Peach Blossom, Bright-line Brown-eye, and Ear Moth. Still plenty to go at though!

A moth!

Even though it became very windy, the significant increase in temperature last night meant that it was worth trying the actinic light again for the first time in nearly a fortnight and, as luck would have it, a single moth appeared:

Acleris ferrugana/notana, Westcott 18th December

This will undoubtedly be ferrugana which is a regular at Westcott and is far more widespread than notana (I've never had the latter in the garden and in Bucks at least it is restricted to sites with a lot of birch, so Bernwood is probably my closest known colony).  However, rather than recording it as the aggregate this one will be checked because I've not seen it here this year.  When its identity is known for sure it will become species number 743 for the 2022 garden list.

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

E-moth Newsletter

The latest issue of Butterfly Conservation's E-moth newsletter can be read here.  Amongst other things, it contains information about the annual Moth Recorders' Meeting which will be held at the end of January (via Zoom).

2022 in numbers: Worminghall, Bucks

The garden year list stands at 491 at the moment (partly verified on Irecord) but I'm still hoping for Winter Moth by the end of the year. That was over approx 121 nights mainly with one MV Robinson's trap but also running an extra twin-actinic during favourable conditions. The all time garden list is now 594 (since 2016 occasionally and more regularly since 2021). 

Highlight was a Vagrant China-mark, Diasemiopsis ramburialis on 11th November, a first for Bucks, which I was delighted about. Supporting cast included Diamond-spot Pearl, Loxostege sticticalis on 3rd September,  Bordered Straw, Convolvulus Hawkmoth, L-album Wainscot, Raspberry Clearwing, Cream-bordered Green Pea and Small Black Arches.

Vagrant China-mark

Diamond-spot Pearl

Bordered Straw

Raspberry Clearwing

Westcott, Bucks

There has been very little activity out in the garden over the past ten or so nights but, until last night, I have members of the trio below to thank for the continued absence of any blanks:    

Scarce Umber, Mottled Umber & Winter Moth
Westcott 3rd December

Scarce Umber must be all but over by now and I've not had a December Moth yet this month so, as Tim Arnold commented to an early post, that species may also be well past its peak this year.

With forecast temperatures barely above freezing during the daytime for the next week or so and frosts each night, the first hour or two after dark might perhaps bring in the odd Winter Moth (just as likely to a lit window as to the moth light) but I'm not really expecting anything else.  Roll on 2023 when it starts all over again!  

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Winter or Northern Winter?

 These specimens (amongst others) turned up on Monday night. Does No 4 have pale enough hind wings to make in Northern? I imagine the others are Winter moth. Thanks, David

Acleris sparsana

Back on 29th October, I posted this picture of what I thought was Acleris schalleriana.

It has now been checked by Peter, and it is infact Acleris sparsana. They are definitely tricky to tell apart sometimes. Steve Trigg, Cookham

Moth Dissection website

This is a request for those that use the Moth Dissection website either directly or indirectly, to consider sponsoring the site . I make this plea every year so that we can cover the running costs and keep it going. There's been an astonishing number of new dissection images as well as adult, larval and other stages posted. Every day new images appear. So please consider helping to keep it going. Thank you. Peter Hall

2022 in Numbers: Westcott

As I've mentioned on here before, finding out what people think about their own mothing year is a fascinating exercise (to me, anyway!).  Each December I usually try to present some information about how things have been in the garden here in the hope that others might be tempted to do something similar.  That's not seeking comparisons between Westcott and other sites (all will be different, due not least to effort and local habitat), but looking at how each one's results compare to previous years at that same site.  With dissections for 2022 completed earlier than usual (many thanks, Peter), I have an excellent idea already as to what kind of year it has been for moths at Westcott so here are a few statistics to compare with previous years:

Number of nights the lights were run (1st Jan to 30th Nov):  310, of which 121 were with a single twin-30w actinic and the remainder with two traps (37 nights using two twin-30w traps and the remainder with one 125w MV & one twin-30w actinic).  That amount of effort is broadly similar to the previous four years, although running two actinics in the garden is not something I've tried before. 

Number of species caught:  742, comprising 382 micros and 360 macros.  That is the highest annual species count ever for the garden, exceeding last year's record total of 712 by a significant margin. 

Nights with 100+ species:  18, spread between 16th June and 1st August and all using both traps (125w MV and twin-30w actinic).  A further 13 nights came quite close with more than 90 species recorded and the results from one of those (19th July, 96 species) came from the actinic alone because the MV failed not long after it was switched on and contained zero moths when inspected at dawn.  The night with the highest species total was 11th July with 167, while 17th & 18th July shared second place with 154 each.  The year's results are certainly an improvement over both 2020 and 2021, being broadly similar to 2019 but still not as good as 2018 when there were 26 nights with 100+ species.

Best night for moth numbers:  2nd August when the total came to 782 individual moths (of 91 species).  The best night for species (11th July) had produced only 660 moths.  The second highest moth count occurred on 21st July (706 moths of 138 species) and that was the only other date on which the total surpassed 700.  Those figures are not at all exceptional here and, for example, have a way to go to catch up with the regular 1,000+ nightly totals achieved during 2019 using the same two traps.  

Highest overall counts for a single species:  Common Footman (1,575), Large Yellow Underwing (1,439) & Lunar Underwing (1,248) for macros and Acentria ephemerella (2,195), Agriphila tristella (547) & Patania ruralis (491) for micros.  In all, seven specific species passed the 1,000 barrier, the other three being Flame Shoulder, Setaceous Hebrew Character & Common Wainscot.  Heart & Dart (674) showed an improvement over its dismal performance in 2021 but still has a way to go to get back to its normal position amongst the highest counts.  Small Square-spot (512) was also working its way back up towards another peak after a trough of just 17 individuals in 2019.  It seems to undergo regular cycles like this lasting seven or eight years.

New for the site in 2022:  Seven macro and 16 micro species which, incredibly, is almost identical to the results for 2020 & 2021 and takes the garden lepidoptera count to 1,096 (606 micro, 458 macro & 32 butterfly species).  The new macros comprised Raspberry Clearwing & Sallow Clearwing both to pheromone lures during the daytime, while the overnight traps brought in Yellow Horned (common locally, long awaited), Jersey Mocha (migrant), Rest Harrow (migrant), Wormwood (widespread but seldom comes to light) & L-album Wainscot (spreading).  Of the micros, two were added as leaf-mines (Eriocrania sangii on birch, Phyllonorycter tenerella on hornbeam) and two as by-catch to pheromone lures (Triaxomasia caprimulgella to LUN, Pammene giganteana to MOL) while the remainder came to light:  Tineola bisselliella, Caloptilia populetorum, Caloptilia alchimiella, Povolnya leucapennella, Acrocercops brongniardella, Scrobipalpa ocellatella, Coleophora discordella, Elachista rufocinerea, Merrifieldia baliodactylus, Cnephasia pasiuana, Epinotia trigonella & Pempelia palumbella.   

Total number of moths caught in the garden (1st Jan to 30th Nov):  38,069 which is a marked improvement over 2021 (29,330 for the year) but nowhere near the total achieved in 2019 (54,400).

So to summarize, moth diversity at Westcott was above normal levels while moth abundance showed a recovery from the low of 2021 but was still significantly down on what was achieved in 2019.

2022 will be remembered as a particularly good year for migrants although Ancylosis oblitella was probably the only interesting one here not already mentioned.  Most of those seen at Westcott were the more common species - there were just more of them than usual.  They included Vestal, Four-spotted Footman, Small Marbled, Bordered Straw, Scarce Bordered Straw, Small Mottled Willow, Delicate & Pearly Underwing as well as Hummingbird Hawk-moth, Silver Y & Dark Sword-grass which are annual visitors.     

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks