Breaking some minor garden records

The last two occasions on which I have run the moth traps have turned up some interesting results, although not of any great significance.

The earlier occasion was the night of 28th September and started off as a mistake: I put up the traps without having checked the latest weather forecast, and sure enough it was a very wet night.

There was a reasonable count of moths all the same and amongst these was the first Palpita vitrealis for the garden; the latest-ever Burnished Brass (by two weeks) and the earliest-ever Feathered Thorn (also by two weeks).

Palpita vitrealis
Newton Longville, 28 September 2023

There was also some interest amongst other invertebrates. I don't know if it was due to the rain, but I recorded significantly more caddisflies than I have ever had at home before (69 of 7 species).

Found sitting soggily on the sheet was a fly which looked particularly attractive with its horizontally-striped eyes.  This was Stomorhina lunata, sometimes called the Locust Fly because its larvae eat the eggs of the latter.  Locusts being in short supply here, this was long believed to be a long-distance vagrant, but I happened to chat with Erica McAlister earlier this week and she told me that some of the individuals found very far from the coast are now suspected of being resident, presumably with a different larval diet.

Stomorhina lunata
Newton Longville, 28 September 2023

The night of 7th October was dry and warm with southerly winds winds which may be why there was a Vestal in the trap the next morning - another new species on the garden list.

The Box-tree moths, Cydalima perspectalis, have been much more numerous this year, and that night they smashed the garden record with 55 individuals present, including four of the melanic form.

There was a significant number of "latest ever" records for the garden, presumably enabled by the run of higher-than-seasonal average daily temperatures. These included Autumnal Rustic (9 days later than my previous latest record), Centre-barred Sallow (2 weeks later), Frosted Orange and Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing (both 1 month later) and Least Carpet (a stonking three months later than before: part of what seems to be a very small second generation?).

Autumnal Rustic
Newton Longville, 7 October 2023

Amongst the other inverts was the somewhat misleadingly-named burying beetle Necrodes littoralis (frequently found away from the coast) which had only its second occurrence in the garden.

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks