Westcott, Bucks

Orthosia species continue to dominate the nightly catches here, accounting for 37 of last night's 45 individual moths.  As at 31st March the garden year-list stood at 63 species (59 adults, four early stages), with adult additions during the second half of March being as follows:

     (16th)  Blossom Underwing

     (18th)  Brindled Beauty

     (19th)  Amblyptilia acanthadactyla, Brindled Pug

     (20th)  Powdered Quaker

     (26th)  Plutella xylostella, Nut-tree Tussock

     (30th)  Emperor Moth (daytime, to EMP lure), Scorched Carpet, Herald

     (31st)  Chinese Character, Brimstone Moth

Plutella xylostella, Westcott 26th March

Scorched Carpet, Westcott 30th March

Herald, Westcott 30th March

Nut-tree Tussock, Westcott 26th March

Blossom Underwing, Westcott 16th March

Over the past 20 years I've recorded 99 different adult moth species in the garden here during the first quarter of the season (53 macros, 46 micros).  While the 2024 count of 59 is a record for any individual year, exceeding 57 achieved in 2021, those 59 species comprised 38 macros (only just a record total, beating 37 recorded in 2017 & 2019) and 21 micros (not a record because 22 were seen in 2021).  So, despite the way things were looking back in February, the first quarter species total wasn't hugely better than what has been achieved here over the past few years.

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

A good night for...

 ...caddis flies! 

A total of 69 Stenophylax permistus (ID based on a sample) to my actinic traps last night, but only 19 moths. 

Jersey Tiger larva

Making a pleasant change from young Scarlet Tiger larvae which seem to be being recorded all over the place at the moment, this 15mm caterpillar of Jersey Tiger was found by torchlight here last night, close to the actinic light.  It was feeding on new growth of Comfrey Symphytum which pops up regularly in the damper spots of the garden. 

Jersey Tiger caterpillar, Westcott 27th March

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Phyllonorycter on Snowberry

Yesterday I had an adult Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella emerge from a mine on Snowberry Symphoricarpos, one of four containing the typical dark green pupal cocoon collected in the garden last October (the other three all produced parasitic wasps).  I've recorded the mines here previously on Snowberry, but never on Honeysuckle of which we have a large amount.  

Pupal cocoon of Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella
inside mine on Snowberry, Westcott 19th October 2023

Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella, emerged 26th March 2024

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

 

Micro for ID

Can this micro be identified from this photo please?

Alan Diver

Tackley Heath

21 Mar

Red or White

 

Sorry to be my usual hopeless self with these early moths, but I put this down on my own blog as Clouded Drab and two commentors have suggested, I am sure rightly, that it is actually Red Chestnut  - with one of them adding that it might also be White-marked.  I'd be very grateful for advice.  I'm still having problems with comments here over Google sign-ins but will update this in due course with my thanks.  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

Update: Thanks so much for your expertise, Dave and Martin. Two moths for the price of one, and both more interesting than a Clouded Drab. But will I ever learn?

       

Powdered Quaker?

Am I correct in thinking the moth below is a Powdered Quaker? If so, it would be a new addition to my garden list.

Steve Trigg, Cookham

Surprise in Bernwood Forest

I ran a couple of MV lights on the eastern side of Bernwood Forest in Bucks last night, my first visit there this year.  There was one stand-out moth amongst more than 900 caught in the traps and that was the Red Sword-grass shown below:

Red Sword-grass, Bernwood 20th March

Red Sword-grass, Bernwood 20th March

Red Sword-grass is rarely seen in our region and past records have generally been considered as wanderers from the west country or Wales where it is resident.  However, its appearances locally do seem to have been on the increase over the past ten or so years.  I've had it twice in the garden at Westcott (2021 & 2023) and Richard Ellis had one a few days ago, albeit just over the border into Hertfordshire, after having had a couple at his previous abode in Chorleywood, Bucks.  Hopefully it is in the process of becoming established hereabouts because it is certainly an interesting looking moth!

As at Finemere Wood the previous week, Small Quaker (443) and Common Quaker (182) provided the highest counts at Bernwood, while the remainder of the macros comprised Yellow Horned (1), Frosted Green (5), Brindled Pug (35), Early Tooth-striped (7), March Moth (3), Small Brindled Beauty (1), Oak Beauty (40), Dotted Border (5), Engrailed (2), Chestnut (13), Pale Pinion (1), Pine Beauty (1), Clouded Drab (9), Blossom Underwing (32), Lead-coloured Drab (1), Hebrew Character (21), Twin-spotted Quaker (11) & Red Chestnut (56).  Just the one Yellow Horned presumably means that I've all but missed its flight season this year, while Frosted Green is just starting out.  It seems to me unusual to see both species together even though their flight seasons do supposedly overlap.   

Yellow Horned & Frosted Green, Bernwood 20th March

Early Tooth-striped, Bernwood 20th March

Pine Beauty, Bernwood 20th March

Micros were again a little bit disappointing with only four species putting in an appearance:  Diurnea fagella (40), Acleris ferrugana/notana (1), Tortricodes alternella (8) & Pammene splendidulana (1).  However, the last mentioned species is uncommon so that was a nice record even though it is already known from Bernwood (and Finemere for that matter).  Like Pammene giganteana, it is associated with oaks, flies early in the season and may be reluctant to come to light.  

Pammene splendidulana, Bernwood 20th March

 

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks  

Another early one

An exceptionally early Chinese Character in Stoke Goldington, N Bucks, last night. My earliest by 25 days.

 

 

Caloptilia sp

This one from last night looks to me like a candidate for Caloptilia falconipennella. 8mm in length.

I will retain it for checking.

Andy Newbold, Sibford Ferris, Oxon.

Westcott, Bucks

The first half of March proved to be a bit disappointing after all that promise of an early spring following the very mild weather in February.  It was back to rather more seasonal chillier nights for much of the period and there was very little let-up in the rain which has meant that much of the lawn in our back garden is still under water even now.  There was moth activity every night but it wasn't until the 9th that a new species was added to the garden year-list.  The following take that list to 50 species for the year, of which 47 are adult moths:

       (9th)  Acleris literana
     (11th)  Red Chestnut

     (12th)  Grey Shoulder-knot, Twin-spotted Quaker

     (13th)  Early Thorn, Early Grey

     (14th)  Pammene giganteana (to MOL pheromone lure at 11am) 

     (15th)  Agonopterix arenella, Double-striped Pug

The 12th produced a very acceptable return to the actinic with just over 80 moths altogether, but the catches on most other nights haven't achieved even half that number.  Micros have been in short supply with only Agonopterix heracliana and Emmelina monodactyla appearing with any kind of regularity.  The Acleris literana (9th) was very nice to see although it had a chunk missing from one wing and wasn't as nicely marked as Martin Harvey's example back in February (see here).

The local bat population was tempted out of hibernation early by our mild February weather and at least one medium-sized individual (almost certainly Brown Long-eared) has been on patrol in the garden on most nights during this period.  I've certainly lost the odd Orthosia or two each session, and probably more than that judging by the sets of wings left lying around near the light.   

Acleris literana, Westcott 9th March

Red Chestnut, Westcott 11th March

Twin-spotted Quaker, Westcott 12th March

Early Thorn, Westcott 13th March

Early Grey, Westcott 13th March

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks   

Numbers on the rise in woodland

Last night I spent the three hours from dusk at Finemere Wood, Bucks, my first away trapping anywhere since December.  This wasn't in the hope of getting anything exciting but mainly to check that the equipment (generators in particular) was working satisfactorily prior to the season ahead.  Well over 1,000 moths of 22 species came to the two MV traps and, much as expected, Small Quaker (354) and Common Quaker (524) were the most numerous, followed by Oak Beauty (54) as the next in line.  The other macro-moths seen were March Moth (12), Shoulder Stripe (1), Water Carpet (2), Brindled Pug (3), Early Thorn (2), Pale Brindled Beauty (1), Small Brindled Beauty (17), Engrailed (1), Early Grey (1), Chestnut (20), Satellite (1), Clouded Drab (23), Lead-coloured Drab (20), Twin-spotted Quaker (7), Hebrew Character (32) & Red Chestnut (33).  The lack of Spring Usher came as no real surprise as it started so early this year and must be over by now, but it seemed odd not to get a single Yellow Horned because they've started to appear elsewhere in oak woodland.  Apart from Diurnea fagella (28) the micros were in very short supply, the only others to turn up being Tortricodes alternella (3, like Spring Usher presumably almost over by now) & Acleris ferrugana/notana (1).

Water Carpet, Finemere Wood 13th March

Brindled Pug, Finemere Wood 13th March

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks 

Alstromoeriana?

 

I'd be grateful for help with this micro whose 'fan' pattern I don't recognise, though in other respects it seems to fit Agonopterix alstromoeriana which also came two nights ago. We have Alstromerias in the garden, the famous 'Poor Man's Orchid' now also of filling station fame. Perhaps the lines are wing-fold creases?  Meanwhile it was very cheering to get the first showy moth of the year last night, this Oak Beauty below.  Martin Wainwright Thrupp Oxon

Update: Thanks so much Dave as ever for your advice below. Sorry to be thanking you this way and hope to get my Google side of things sorted before long.  Much appreciated, M 

id help please Acleris? Quaker/Drab?

 Grateful for id help please with this tortrix - an Acleris spp perhaps?  

 

 And is the macro Clouded Drab or a dark Common Quaker or something else?

Pale or Tawny Pinion

 Hi there,

I'm thinking Tawny (which would be new for our local commons in Cholesbury/Hawridge) but I would appreciate confirmation. The dark pointed shoulders look right, but the diagnostic blackish bar isn't at all clear - but then it's worn, having survived the wettest winter on record!

Please tell me it isn't just a very dark Pale Pinion!!

Thanks, David

PS It's amazing what can fall out of a bird feeder when you clean it out!!

Yellow Horned

I had this Yellow Horned visit my garden trap last night, which is only the second record for my garden, the first being back in 2018.

Steve Trigg, Cookham

Blossom Underwing

 Amongst rather slim pickings last night, this Blossom Underwing appears to be the earliest for the region by about six days, unless there are earlier 2023 records not yet in the Atlas.

Struggling

 I am struggling with the  macro on the right ,trapped on 25th September.I thought Knot Grass but too late.Any thoughts?

UK Moth Recorders Meeting

I watched a recording of this meeting, following the link posted by Dave, and was amazed to learn that 486 species of macro moth had been recorded in the NMRS in January! (At 7:52 mins into the recording).
I appreciate that this is UK-wide and possibly includes all life stages, but it still seems remarkable that more than half the UK's macro moths have been recorded in January. A similar story for micros, with 646 species recorded in January. Or am I completely misunderstanding what is being said?

Phil T

Accidental indoor rearing

While counting the eleven Nemapogon granella adults in my kitchen late this afternoon, I noticed a fresh-looking Cydia pomonella amongst them.  The N. granella breed in a bag of walnuts brought back from France in 2019.   Peter checked the genitalia of a specimen in 2020.

Nemapogon granella found indoors
Newton Longville, 1st March 2024

The walnuts came from a tree in the garden of my wife's family home.  During a visit in November 2019, we picked up the walnuts from the wet grass beneath the tree and dried them indoors by an open fire before putting them in a carrier bag and bringing it home to Newton Longville.  The wet weather had partly-rotted the pericarp of the walnuts (the fleshy cover over the hard shell beneath) and we didn't really clean this off.  It turns out that this is where the larvae of N. granella were feeding and the same bag of walnuts in the kitchen - more specifically the pericarp on them - has sustained several generations per year of N. granella since then: we decided not to disrupt it by eating the nuts.  There can't be much pericarp left by now.

Cydia pomonella found indoors
Newton Longville, 1st March 2024

We have apple trees in the garden and we definitely have Codling Moth, so it is probable that the C. pomonella got into the house as a larva within an apple earlier this autumn or winter and that it had then found somewhere to pupate and emerged extremely early as a result of the indoor warmth.  We store the in the cold and bring just a few at a time into the kitchen for eating - the last was eaten a month ago - so the larva would have had only a short time in which to emerge from an apple before the apple was eaten.

Alternatively it is just possible that this is another species that has started to breed in the walnuts.  C. pomonella is known to use walnut as a foodplant and I found online a French document from the 1920s that says specifically that they use the pericarp.

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville, Bucks

Westcott, Bucks

The weather proved to be rather different from that expected over the last two week period thanks to the Met Office's usual inability to correctly forecast night-time cloud cover (or lack thereof), so we ended up with three nights of frost under a bright moon.  However, moths still turned out every single night meaning that I had no blanks at all in February which is probably a site record.  The month proved to be one of the wettest on record locally (if not the wettest) and much of our garden has been under water for the majority of it, so I will be interested to see how those species which over-winter as larvae or pupae at or below ground level have fared.

New arrivals were fewer than during the first half of the month but they continued to trickle in with the following added to the year-list: 

     (15th)  Red-green Carpet, Lead-coloured Drab, Oak Nycteoline

     (16th)  Small Brindled Beauty

     (17th)  Epiphyas postvittana

     (18th)  Eudonia angustea

     (23rd)  Mompha jurassicella

     (27th)  Diurnea fagella

The above moths take the garden count for 2024 up to 37 adult species, comprising 22 macros (equalling 2019 as the highest count ever here by the end of February) and 15 micros (beating the previous record of 12 achieved last season).  The number of individual moths seen in the garden over the first two months of the year came to just under 500 which I'm sure must also be a record.

Diurnea fagella, Westcott 27th February

Likely Mompha jurassicella, Westcott 23rd February

Eudonia angustea, Westcott 18th February

Lead-coloured Drab, Westcott 15th February

I'm happy that the putative Mompha jurassicella will prove to be correctly identified but it has been retained for checking.  The Lead-coloured Drab was a fairly nondescript individual, as they often are, but I've had a few more since the 15th which were slightly better marked.

A 7mm early-instar larva of Common Footman was found near the light on 16th February.  That same night brought in the first caddis-fly of the season, illustrated below, while the previous night had produced the year's first smelly sexton beetle Nicrophorus humator as well as the large Vine Weevil Otiorhynchus sulcatus. 

Larva of Common Footman, Westcott 16th February

Caddis Stenophylax permistus, Westcott 16th February

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Recording of UK Moth Recorders' Meeting

For those who may have been unable to attend but still wish to see what went on, this year's annual UK Moth Recorders' Meeting, held in Birmingham at the end of January, is now available to watch on Butterfly Conservation's YouTube channel here.   

Caterpillar query

 Can anyone kindly help my granddaughter to ID this very small caterpillar - currently about 1cm long.  I'll thank you by updating this post because I'm having the recently-discussed Comment problems (and am grateful for the advice given, which I'm working on).  Our best guess so far is Yellow-tail.  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

Thanks very much Dave and Tim.  She found the cattie near dead ivy leaves on the ground and a beech hedge and 'rescued' it because there didn't seem much for it to eat.  I'll also check out that very helpful link.  She wants to try to rear it, so I'm suggesting a mixed diet based on the poss IDs.  Very much obliged.  I tried again to do a Comment but no luck yet.  All warmest and thanks too for speed M

PhD student looking for help

Each of our County Moth Recorders has been contacted by Iona Cunningham-Eurich at UCL regarding a research project on nocturnal ichneumonid wasps and an edited version of her request appears below:

My name is Iona Cunningham-Eurich, and I am a second-year PhD student at the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, and University College London (UCL), under the supervision of Dr. Gavin Broad (NHM) and Prof. Seirian Sumner (UCL). My research focuses on parasitoid wasps, specifically comparing generalist and specialist species. I am reaching out to the local moth-trapping community to find anyone who would be interested in helping to collect wasp specimens. We are aiming to collect geographically well-distributed nocturnal parasitoids belonging to the genera Netelia and Ophion between May and September of this year (2024). These wasps are attracted to light, including moth traps, and are easily recognisable given that they are relatively large and orange. 

The aims of this project are twofold: (1) to create a snapshot in time of the diversity and distributions of UK nocturnal parasitoids (information that is largely lacking) and (2) to perform a molecular genetics project. The collection process would proceed as follows: we will send packs of tubes containing 70% ethanol to participants (the specimens must be collected in ethanol for genetics). After sampling, participants would send the tubes back to the Natural History Museum every month or so. All equipment and postage will be provided. Once we receive the wasps, we will identify them and they will be integrated into the NHM Hymenoptera collections (with credit to the collector). Some will also be used for the genetics study.

We would like to hear from anyone who is interested, but particularly from people who trap multiple times a month in one or multiple woodland sites between May and September. Even if you are not personally interested in helping, please feel free to share this email with other expert moth-trappers who fulfil the above criteria and may be interested. However, please note that due to limited funding, participation may need to be capped. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. Thank you for your interest and I hope to hear from you soon. 

If interested please contact Iona direct at either iona.cunningham-eurich.16@ucl.ac.uk or iona.cunninghameurich@nhm.ac.uk