Recently Paul Black got in touch to pass on the exciting news that he had recorded the first ever Porter's Rustic (Athetis hospes) in Berkshire, only the second record for Upper Thames as a whole, after Richard Ellis's in 2008 on the eastern edge of Buckinghamshire.
Paul found the moth on 24 September in Leckhampstead, while trapping in a pumpkin field - a habitat I had not previously considered targeting for moths!
If anyone is lucky enough to find another one it is worth checking that the hind wings are bright white with darkened cilia at the tip. A rather similar species, Athetis lepigone, has been found in the UK this year, I think as an immigrant to the east coast. It has the hind wings a duller grey with darkened veins, as shown on the Lepiforum site.
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| Porter's Rustic, Berkshire, photo by Paul Black |
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| Porter's Rustic, Berkshire, photo by Paul Black |
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| Porter's Rustic, Berkshire, Paul's specimen, photo by Martin Harvey |
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