Clepsis dumicolana

While on the subject of adventive moths moving out of London, some of you will be aware that from 2018 onwards an ivy-covered wall at the front of Andrew Kershaw's house in Longwick, Bucks was home to the first known colony of the tortrix Clepsis dumicolana to be found outside the capital.  A long-standing contributor of moth records to the Bucks database, Andrew and his family sold up and moved away to Norfolk in the autumn of 2022.  I've often wondered if the dumicolana colony would survive and on driving past Andrew's old house earlier in 2023 was saddened to see that the new occupants have had an extension built and the ivy is no longer there.  The moths were fairly sedentary and didn't really venture away from the ivy, rarely appearing even in his moth trap in the back garden, so it seems almost certain that this colony has been lost.  Surely the moth must have turned up somewhere else in our region by now?

Clepsis dumicolana, Longwick Sep 2021

Choreutis nemorana

Another adventive micro species which is spreading out of London has now reached our region.  Choreutis nemorana was first discovered in Hyde Park in 2014 and feeds on fig Ficus carica.  At the beginning of October Peter Ogden in Bergher's Hill near Wooburn, Bucks found an adult in his greenhouse where he has quite a large fig, on which there are indeed feeding signs.  The moth has summer and autumn broods and those which emerge in the autumn over-winter as adults.  The larvae feed on the leaf within a silk spinning and then create a leaf-edge fold inside which they pupate.  If you have a fig in your garden it is time to check the leaves!   

Choreutis nemorana, Bergher's Hill 5th Oct (Peter Ogden)

Westcott, Bucks

The second half of December proved to be much like the first, although the garden species count since the 16th has actually been a couple higher:  Mompha epilobiella, Agonopterix alstromeriana, Scrobipalpa costella, Acleris schalleriana, Emmelina monodactyla, Winter Moth, Pale Brindled Beauty, Mottled Umber, Turnip, Chestnut, Dark Chestnut & Dark Arches, along with caterpillars of Angle Shades.  Despite wind and rain, last night's collection of moths comprised Mottled Umber (5) and, assuming that I do manage to get something tonight, there have been no blanks at all.  However, I was away on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so the light was not run on those two nights.  

Scrobipalpa costella, Westcott 18th December

Turnip Moth, Westcott 21st December

Angle Shades caterpillars wandered up the conservatory wall to the light on the 18th (two, almost fully grown, both colour forms) and on the 20th (one, a small mid-instar green example).  They are regular sightings here on mild nights between December and February.

Caterpillars of Angle Shades, Westcott 18th December

Although very windy at times, the mild weather we've had has produced other unexpected activity in the garden too, with the predatory shield-bug Troilus luridus coming to light at night on 16th December and a Buff-tailed Bumble-bee Bombus terrestris being seen flying during the daytime on the 22nd.  These conditions are likely to persist through the first few days of January at least, which should ensure that the 2024 garden list gets under way quite promptly.  Happy New Year everyone, and here's hoping for a really good moth season to come! 

Troilus luridus, Westcott 16th December

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks 

Recording Dead Moths - further comment

 Dear All

In response to the discussion below on this topic, as VC23 CMR I would like to add two comments. 

Firstly, I agree with what Dave says about reared records. For the purposes of recording, it is essential that only the date of capture of the egg, larva, mine, adult parent female etc. is recorded in the Date field. Anything else that might be felt to be interesting/relevant belongs in the Comment field. 

Records of moths found dead are usually of relatively little value especially if they are common species recorded regularly at the site. For more worthwhile things, if there is any doubt as to the period in which the moth was alive, the best policy imo is to give the full year range (e.g. 01/01/2023-31/12/2023) in the Date field and an explanation of the find given in the Comment field. 

There are exceptions of course - if a moth has been killed by a predator (inside or outside the trap) common sense will tell you whether it was part of that night's catch. For example, I counted the Mottled Umber found a few weeks ago having been caught and wrapped up in silk by a False Widow Spider on the nearby fence, because when extracted from the web it was found to be still floppy. 

Even if a moth is found inside (or near) a trap, if it is dessicated it clearly did not arrive on that date. Moths are easily overlooked when releasing catches and something dried up should not be included with the list from that date when it was first noticed. 

It took BC staff a lot of work removing records with spurious dates from NMRS, including dead specimens, so that the phenology charts in the atlas made sense. Records with whole range ranges are exluded prior to phenology analysis. The phenology data is arguably the most important aspect of recording these days, so its quite important that we get this right. 

Best wishes

Martin

Surprise guest.

 A bought-in pot of Mint had been left outdoors to replenish it earlier this autumn. After some success I brought it back into the kitchen. After a while I noticed it was being nibbled away. The culprit was allowed to stay and now looks like this:

Probably Angle Shades, with a small possibility of Small Angle Shades. By all accounts they both eat pretty much anything green, but it is quite late in the year and I think the former just about ticks the box. 

Moths for Christmas

 After Christmas lunch yesterday we popped out for some fresh air and a dog walk at Coombe Hill. As usual there was a cheerful display of yellow Gorse flowers, but I had forgotten how much Broom there is alongside the Gorse here. Prompted by Will Langdon's recent records of larvae on Broom I spent a short time searching and found two species.

First was the Broom Dot (Trifurcula immundella), which mines the stems of Broom. The mines are quite inconspicuous and if Will hadn't shared photos of his recent Berkshire records I don't think I would have found them, but there were some dark marks on one of the first Broom stems I looked at and under the lens they fitted the description of the mines well. To confirm this species you also need to look for the empty egg shell that often remains on the stem after the larva has hatched.

Broom Dot (Trifurcula immundella) mines and egg on Broom

I also found some other dark marks on the Broom shoots, and this time they were associated with some silk spinning to join two shoots together. On splitting the spinning apart a small brown larva could be seen, which was adept at moving up and down the stem. It had left feeding marks on the of the two stems that were joined together, and had a 'tunnel' within one of the stems that seemed to be its hideout. This is the Speckled Broom Buff (Agonopterix assimilella). Apparently Light Brown Apple Moth (Epiphyas postvittana) also makes spinnings on Broom, but tends to join more than two stems together, and has a paler green larva.

Speckled Broom Buff (Agonopterix assimilella) feeding marks and larva on Broom.

Although these moths are widespread and probably found in many places where Broom grows, there are few records for Upper Thames, and both of them appear to be new for the site, and are species I hadn't recorded before - a great Christmas treat!

Possible Ephestia kuehniella

 The tray we cook the turkey on only comes out once a year and it is stored on top of sacks of chicken food. When asked to wipe the base I was pleased to find this!

It looks to me like Ephestia kuehniella.

Andy Newbold, Sibford Ferris, Oxon. Happy Christmas everyone.

Merry Christmas!

...and here's an exciting festive game of Spot the Moth.  Hours of fun! Or half-a-minute at least. This handsome Angle Shades was my only visitor two nights ago. It woke up briefly during my festive transfer but then slept undisturbed by door-opening and -closing and quite gusty wind, until nightfall when it took its leave.

All warmest and many moths to all in 2024!  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

 

Unidentified

 Hi, can anyone help with the ID of

this moth of 01/07/23 in Penn. Initially thought although pic is in bad light etc that the relatively obvious black spots would clinch ID but it has remained elusive for me 

Records of dead moths

Having been preoccupied with other activities for much of the year, I am now getting around to entering my records, firstly into my own database and then then I'll transfer them into iRecord by spreadsheet upload.  This is always an opportunity to review the quality of each of the records as I proceed.

My database flags various kinds of information as I make each entry: not just if a species is unusual for the area (in which case I will add a photo if I have one and carry across any information I wrote in my notebook about about how I came to the ID), but also it compares the record against the quoted flight periods in the field guides and against my own earliest/latest records. 

While doing this, I came across a situation for which I'd like some guidance as I haven't managed to find anything in writing, but I'm sure it's not a unique situation:

If I find a dead adult moth, I haven't noticed an iRecord field designed for this.  The "stage" field has various permitted values ("adult", "larva" and so on), but that list doesn't include anything that would cover a dead individual. So do I just add "dead" in the comments, or is there another way to record it or should it be omitted entirely?

Flight period information is important and I want to avoid the risk of making records that provide misleading data for this.  Where a dead individual has just been found in a moth trap, one can be reasonably sure that it was alive recently (some caveats apply).  But if found indoors or in certain other circumstances, the adult could have died weeks or months earlier.

I recall - and have re-found - guidance on how to record moths that were reared from early stages because emergence dates can be affected by the artificial rearing environment.  However, I can't find similar guidance for recording dead individuals where there is a possibility that they have been dead for some time.

In the particular case that triggered this question, I have plenty of records of the living adults, so omitting a record of a couple of dead individuals would have no effect on distribution or abundance information, but there could be circumstances in which the discovery of a dead individual is of significance and making a proper record of it is important - but how?

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks

A not so Common Quaker (at this time of year)

 At light a couple of days ago, a moth normally found from March-May - but as the WTL guide book says 'small numbers sometimes emerge in mild spells during the late autumn and winter'.  Another was reported a few days ago by Jon Cole (pers. comm.) near Reading who suggested that winter soil temperatures are occasionally warm enough to fool the moth into early emergence.

                                                       

John Thacker  (Harwell, Oxon)

Late and Early

Last night saw a very unseasonal record of Dark Arches to light in the garden here at Westcott, Bucks (my previous latest was 31st October, back in 2014).  A single MV trap placed in nearby sheltered woodland for a few hours produced a reasonable return of 70 moths drawn from eight species, with the highest count being Mottled Umber (45), but amongst the others was an early Pale Brindled Beauty.

Dark Arches, 16th December

Pale Brindled Beauty, 16th December

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Westcott, Bucks

Considering the time of year the first half of December was actually quite reasonable for moths here although, as you'd expect, diversity has dropped quite significantly now.  There was nothing on the 1st and 2nd due to freezing temperatures by dusk, but since then I've always had at least three or four individual moths each night apart from a surprising blank on the 13th when nothing turned up despite the minimum temperature being +2C.  It shows how hit and miss things can be at this time of year because the following night (14th) was only two or three degrees warmer but 19 moths of three species turned up.  The full list of species seen over this period is as follows:  Agonopterix arenella, Mompha subbistrigella, December Moth, Winter Moth, Northern Winter Moth, Feathered Thorn, Mottled Umber, Satellite & Chestnut.   

Agonopterix arenella, Westcott 15th December

Winter Moth & Northern Winter Moth, Westcott 8th December

Satellite, Westcott 6th December

The night of the 8th saw a resurgence in December Moth visits after two weeks with no sightings here at all.  Ten appeared that night, followed by further examples on the 9th, 10th, 11th & 14th which take this season's count to 69, a record for the garden.  The photo of the Northern Winter Moth above, admittedly of a rather worn individual, doesn't do the moth justice because the silkier appearance of the fore-wings isn't apparent in the image and it refused to show its whitish hind-wings for the camera (every attempt to push forward one of the fore-wings ended with it flying off, unusual because they're normally very docile!).  All the same, it was nice to see because the species isn't an annual here, the last garden sighting being in 2020.

On the 10th another interesting beetle came to the actinic light, this time one of the smallest of the "long-horns" which all have quite spectacular antennae.  It was Pogonocherus hispidus, a species associated with decaying wood which, perhaps thanks to the assorted piles of dead branches left to rot around the edge of our garden, I've had previously here a few times.  Other night-time records of it from Westcott at this time of year include sightings in November (2019) and January (2021) so the beetle presumably over-winters as an adult.   

Pogonocherus hispidus, Westcott 10th December

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Pale Pinion disturbed from its slumbers

On Saturday, while I was enjoying myself at the autumn indoor meeting of the Buckinghamshire Invertebrate Group, the latest named storm was taking out its wrath on a pergola by my front door.  While I was taking a post-meeting walk around College Lake, my wife phoned to tell me that our front door had been rendered inaccessible by displaced and fallen timber and all of the rambling rose that it had been supporting.

It is taking considerable effort to put everything back together again, not least because the now-liberated rambling rose is putting up quite a fight and really doesn't want to let me repair and reassemble the pergola so that I can once more deprive it of its freedom.

Most of the rose was supported by the pergola, but one stem had been trained onto a trellis on the wall of the house and yesterday I needed to untie it temporarily.  This revealed a Pale Pinion resting on the outer face of the wood of the trellis, having been "protected" by nothing more than a leaf of the rose.

Since I had now removed its cover, I potted the moth to protect it from predation.  It was in a kind of torpor and showed only slight reaction to the disturbance.  I assume that although they over-winter as adults, they spend the winter months in a resting state - looking at the phenological charts there are almost no observations between late November and mid-February.

Pale Pinion
Newton Longville, 11 December 2023

On the basis that "nature knows best", I'll put the moth back where I found it as soon as I have emerged victorious from my bloody battle.  I am not sure that this moth has made the best choice of where to spend the winter.  The trellis is close to the front door with a light that is frequently activated at night by a passing cat or fox, and the moth might have been attracted to the light.  Although the overhanging eaves give partial protection from rain falling straight down and the rose leaf might have provided some shelter from slanting rain, the location faces south-west and is, erm, fully-exposed to the prevailing winds!

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks

Field Guide to the Micro-moths - second edition

 

If you haven't ordered it yet and are still looking for ideas for Christmas, my copy arrived in the post this morning and on first glance it seems to be very well worth the money.  More than 100 extra pages, many more species covered and lots more information and photographs on early stages than in the first edition which was published a long time ago now, way back in 2012.

There are bound to be a few niggles in something this size but the only one I've spotted so far is that, as in the first edition, I would struggle to recognise the tortrix Epinotia cruciana as it appears in our area from either the adult illustration or indeed from the description in the text.  

One thing you need to be prepared for is that vernacular names feature much more prominently in this edition and, indeed, the authors have taken it upon themselves to change a large number of them.  In my opinion that's yet another reason for sticking to the scientific names for micro-moths! 

  

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Two micros about the house

This Pale Birch Tortrix Acleris logiana was sitting on the outside of a window, during the day. First time I've seen this species (thanks to Dave W for confirming).

There are very few Upper Thames records of Mediterranean Flour Moth Ephestia kuehniella, but this is not the first time I've seen it in my house. One hatched from a bag of flour a few years ago, and today I found this one sitting innocently on an inside wall ... but where did it emerge from?!

Moth Recorders' Meeting 2024

Not sure if this has been posted before - the annual UK Moth Recorders' Meeting is happening on 27 January 2024, and is back to being an in-person meeting after several years online. Full details and booking information on the Butterfly Conservation website.

Black-spotted Chestnut back in Denham

 The first of the winter to MV, December 1-5 2023. I hope we find that it continues to spread!

January Moth Challenge

In case it is of interest to anyone, at the link here are details of a bit of fun which hopefully will tempt one or two more people to keep trapping throughout the winter months.  The link takes you to a Facebook page but you shouldn't need to be a Facebook subscriber to view it.

I should perhaps add, as someone who traps in the garden on every suitable night throughout the year, that I've managed to record ten different macro species here in January only once in the past 20 years!