Grey Pine Carpet?

I  had this moth in the trap last night (in Abingdon). It is rather faded but I think it is a Grey Pine Carpet.  It looks too brown to be a Spruce Carpet. Are there any other possibilities?

David

Leaf-mines

I can't compete with Will Langdon's fantastic finds (see his post below from two days ago), but for those who are interested in the subject it is worth mentioning that we are now at peak "leaf-mining season".  A lot of common and widespread micro-moth species which it is difficult to record any other way are actively mining leaves at the moment, many of them in a race to feed up and pupate before the leaves fall.  Needless to say it is vitally important that you can correctly identify the host plant but I suspect most of you will at least be able to recognise our common native trees and that's where it is best to start.  For corridor miners (mostly the Nepticulids) the position of the egg, the shape of the mine, the colour of the larva and the pattern of its frass are all important indicators, which is why it is worth persevering to find active mines with the larva still present so that you have the maximum number of clues.  For blister miners (Phyllonorycters, etc) the size, shape and position of the mine as well as the number of creases in it - if any - are important factors.  It is also worth remembering that some other insect groups (coleoptera, diptera and hymenoptera) have a few species which mine leaves too but all is explained on the web-site "British Leafminers" which will be invaluable to you.  It is third in our list of links on the right hand side-bar of this page.

During a very brief look around the garden yesterday afternoon I found active mines of Stigmella hybnerella (on Hawthorn), Stigmella luteella (on Birch), Stigmella obliquella (on Willow), Stigmella oxyacanthella (many on both Apple and Hawthorn), Stigmella plagicolella (on Blackthorn), Phyllonorycter cerasicolella (on Cherry), Phyllonorycter coryli (on Hazel), Phyllonorycter corylifoliella (on Hawthorn), Phyllonorycter joannisi (on Norway Maple), Phyllonorycter leucographella (on Pyracantha), Phyllonorycter oxyacanthae (on Hawthorn), Phyllonorycter rajella (on Alder), Phyllonorycter schreberella (on Elm), Phyllonorycter tristrigella (on Elm), Parornix anglicella (on Hawthorn), Parornix devoniella (on Hazel) & Parornix scoticella (on Apple), as well as vacated mines of quite a few other species of which the most abundant were Stigmella microtheriella (on Hazel and Hornbeam) and, of course, Lyonetia clerkella (on just about everything!).  

Mine of Stigmella luteella on Birch

Mine of Stigmella oxyacanthella on Hawthorn

Mine of Stigmella plagicolella on Blackthorn

Mine of Phyllonorycter corylifoliella on Hawthorn

Mine of Phyllonorycter oxyacanthae on Hawthorn

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Stoke Goldington. New trap, new moth

 After a gap of 6 years from regular mothing, I decided it was time to build an industrial strength Skinner trap (MV) and get recording again. On its first outing this evening, I am pleased to announce a garden first - Clifden Nonpareil. A scarce moth 6 years ago, but looking at the recent records, now doing quite nicely in North Bucks.

Recent Moths

Another belated update from August and September. In my previous post I mentioned that I'd found what I was fairly sure were Mirificarma lentiginosella larvae at Wendlebury Meads, but was waiting for adults to emerge to confirm the ID. They duly did so the next day, making this the second Oxon site for this scarce Gelechiid.

Mirificarma lentiginosella - ex larva from Wendlebury Meads

Unfortunately work ramped up a bit in August, so wasn't able to get out looking for moths as much as I'd have liked. I had a few nice leafmining sessions though, at Bagley Woods on 07/08 highlights were plenty of Phyllonorycter tenerella (on Hornbeam) a nationally scarce species that I don't find often despite searching, Stigmella tiliae (Lime), Bucculatrix cidarella (Alder), Parornix fagivora (Beech), Phyllonorycter sorbi, and Stigmella nylandriella (Rowan). At Shotover Country Park later in the week, I found Stigmella nylandriella again, but no sign of Stigmella sorbi (which doesn't seem to have any VC23 records) despite a good search.

Bucculatrix cidarella larva on Alder, with moulting cocoonet on the bottom of the leaf, mine, and grazing)

Parornix fagivora mine

On the 22nd I went to Sydlings Copse in the hope of finding Coleophora artemisicolella on the abundant Mugwort in the nearby arable fields. No luck unfortunately, but the bonus was arguably much better - 4 lovely Wormwood larvae. This species only seems to have a handful of records in VC23, of random adults here and there, which probably does reflect local breeding (as the adults are quite shy at light), so it was nice to confirm it.

Wormwood larva - Sydlings Copse

Fortunately I did also find Coleophora artemisicolella a few weeks later, while helping with Barberry Carpet surveys (a record year it seems!) in West Oxfordshire on 05/09. There were a number of larval cases on Mugwort near where we parked for one site, which seem to be the first VC23 records of what is a very under-recorded species, thanks to how well-camouflaged the cases are. The best way to spot them is by looking for the trademark feeding holes in mugwort seeds, and once one case is found there are often more nearby.

Coleophora artemisicolella larval case and feeding holes 

I found it again on a brief visit to Aston Rowant a few days later (08/09). I managed a day there on 12/09 as well, but couldn't find much to add to the site list, though there was a good collection of leafminers that I've seen there before. Ectoedemia arcuatella was widespread in shady spots on Wild Strawberry, as were Stigmella poterii (Salad Burnet) and Trifurcula eurema (Bird's Foot Trefoil) in the grassland. All of these species only have one or two previous Oxfordshire records but are probably waiting to be found at lots of other chalk grassland sites on the Chilterns, along with Trifurcula headleyella (Self-Heal) which I found one mine of in a quick search on Bald Hill. Despite searching high and low though, still no sign of Stigmella aeneofasciella here.

Trifurcula headleyella mine

Stigmella poterii mines

Trifurcula eurema mine

The day before I had a failed search for Campanula Pug larvae at BBOWT's Warburg reserve. There were some nice bonuses though, in the form of more mines of Phyllonorycter tenerella on Hornbeam, Ectoedemia arcuatella on Wild Strawberry, and Lyonetia prunifoliella on Blackthorn continuing its expansion. I think the latter two are both second records for VC23. More common, but no less exciting was my first ever Lobster Moth larva spotted on Blackthorn along the entrance road - what an amazing beast!

Ectoedemia arcuatella mines

Lobster Moth larva

I searched a number of other sites on the Chilterns for Campanula Pug this autumn, all without success. On 15/08 I went round most of the woods near Christmas Common looking for the foodplant, but didn't really find enough to justify a return trip to search (a maximum of 20 deer-nibbled spikes in one wood). On the same day as Warburg I also visited the National Trust's Cliveden estate where the moth was recorded where the track along the escarpment drops down to the river in the 90s. About 100 spikes of the foodplant, but no larvae here. Happy to send more specific information on locations and numbers of plants if anyone else is interested in having a go, and I'd love to hear from anyone that knows of any good stands of the foodplant (60-70+ spikes maybe) on the Chilterns. I'm sure the moth is out there, but the foodplant is quite patchy, so I'm probably just not looking in the right places.

Those not on social media may have missed some extremely sad news for the moth world this week as well, in the form of the passing of Doug Boyes. Many of you will have heard of Doug for his amazing work as a scientist (his recent study on the effects of streetlighting on larval abundance made headlines around the world) and a moth recorder (as the youngest county moth recorder in the history of the scheme). I was fortunate enough to get to know him via his work at Wytham Woods (collecting moths for the Darwin Tree of Life project), and see first hand his brilliance, dedication, and generosity with his time and knowledge. He was an extraordinary person with such a bright future ahead of him and I and everyone else who was lucky enough to know him will miss him terribly. You can read a tribute to him from his colleagues at CEH and Butterfly Conservation here: https://www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-media/news/tribute-douglas-boyes.

A matter of a pinion...or two

Following the recent prompt to look at ivy flowers after dusk, I was pleased to find two species of Pinion, Tawny and Pale, feeding in close proximity to each other on my ivy last week.

Tawny Pinion

Pale Pinion 

Not being familiar with either species, I initially wondered whether the Pale Pinion might be a faded Tawny--until I checked the Field Guide that is!  iRecord told me that Tawny Pinion was new for the 10 km square and it is apparently uncommon in Bucks these days, so a nice garden record. 

Westcott, Bucks

As can be seen from the data below there has been some considerable fluctuation in results from the two garden traps over the past week, with Sunday's catch more than acceptable for the time of year on what was probably the last relatively warm night for a while, but fewer than half the number of both moths and species turned up the following night.  Of the 268 individuals on Sunday, 88 were Lunar Underwing and 43 were Setaceous Hebrew Character.  However, despite southerly winds on both Saturday and Sunday no migrants found their way here and the only one over the entire period was another Dark Sword-grass last night (28th).  

     (22nd)  90 moths of 27 species; nothing new for the garden year-list.

     (23rd)  80 moths of 22 species; nothing new for the garden year-list.

     (24th)  118 moths of 23 species; nothing new for the garden year-list. 

     (25th)  147 moths of 32 species; Green-brindled Crescent & Brindled Green new for the year.

     (26th)  268 moths of 40 species; Choreutis pariana & Red-line Quaker new for the year.

     (27th)  108 moths of 18 species; Blair's Shoulder-knot new for the year.

     (28th)  118 moths of 26 species; Lyonetia prunifoliella new for the year. 

Choreutis pariana, Westcott 26th September

Lyonetia prunifoliella, Westcott 28th September

I was particularly pleased to see Choreutis pariana which came to the MV light.  Similar in size and behaviour to the Nettle-tap Anthophila fabriciana which is also around in some numbers at the moment, it has been recorded here during the daytime more often than at night but this is my first sighting of it in the garden for five years.  Apologies for the rather poor picture of it but, needless to say, Lyonetia prunifoliella is another completely new species for the site and as this moth is spreading so fast we can all expect to see it sooner or later.  Unfortunately the specimen was found deceased and in poor condition in one of the egg-trays at the very bottom of the MV trap, covered in a pile of similarly deceased small black flies, and goes to show the wisdom of checking thoroughly amongst the debris!

Short-cloaked Moth, Westcott 22nd September

A second-generation Short-cloaked Moth on the 22nd was unusual, it was nice to see Dewick's Plusia again as singletons on both the 26th and 27th, while my first Satellite of the autumn appeared on the 27th.  Amongst the micros it was good to find Epermenia chaerophyllella (25th), Zelleria hepariella (26th) and Ostrinia nubilalis (26th) in the traps as a change from the usual handful of autumnal tortrix species.

Update:  Another late specimen I had meant to mention then forgot about was a Pale Prominent on 22nd September.  I have had one previous September record (2nd September 2014) but this seems very late indeed and is perhaps indicative of an attempt at a third generation.  The moth certainly did exceptionally well here this year in its earlier broods.

Pale Prominent, Westcott 22nd September

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks  

Old record from Stoke Goldington

 I came across this image from 21 Aug 2004, which I had originally assigned to a very abberant Flounced Rustic, but now I'm not so sure. Comments welcomed.

Smart-looking moths and some not so smart-looking

In terms of species found in the last couple of weeks, I have little to report of interest.  Another Autumnal Rustic and a rather late Endotricha flammealis is about the sum of it.

The progress of the season has shown itself in how smart or otherwise the moths look.  Square-spot Rustics are now looking very worn - there has been a handful of probable SSRs that I haven't recorded because they lacked almost any identifiable markings and I didn't feel sufficiently confident using size and wing shape alone.  One fairly fresh-looking example was the exception to prove the rule on the 24th.  On the other hand, in addition to the Autumnal Rustics, there have been smart-looking Black Rustic, Brown-spot Pinion and a very well-marked Brick.  Even a couple of Deep-brown Darts have managed to look well-turned-out in their drab way.

Brown-spot Pinion
Newton Longville, 24th September 2021

Brick
Newton Longville, 24th September 2021

The identification of two moths is causing me some head-scratching.  For the first I have considered and rejected candidates amongst the Blastobasis, Blastodacna and Diurnea.  Forewing length is just over 6mm.  Unfortunately, the moth escaped before I could take a better photograph than the one below - despite it being just out of the fridge.

Newton Longville, 19th September 2021

The second moth was almost the last moth I took out of the trap on the 24th and it is unable to fold away one of its hindwings.  Being able to see its hindwing easily ought to mean that I have an extra way to identify it, but the markings on both fore- and hind-wings have not led me to any conclusions.  There is something about the forewing shape and markings that is giving an itch deep in my memory, but to no avail.  Help appreciated!

Newton Longville, 24th September 2021

Tim Arnold

Newton Longville, Bucks

Early Thorn

Whilst trimming our Hazel yesterday my partner found two of these larva which I think is Early Thorn.

Eudonia angustea?

 Stoke Goldington: Is this Crambid micro , E. angustea - there don't seem to be many Bucks report in iRecord - although I suspect that may be just an artefact of the way moth'ers choose to report their records?

Dotted Rustic?

 Stoke Goldington, Bucks: Yesterday I had a rather late V-Pug, and today a Merveille du Jour, but this unfamiliar Noctuid puzzled me. Is it a Dotted Rustic?

unexpected visitor

 After Friday nights meagre haul of moths,a single brown spot pinion and a turnip moth and a handful of the usual suspects,i did not really see this coming last night.

First one i have ever seen,and really didnt expect one in my Banbury urban garden.

Mike Banbury

At Last!

 At last I can join the club! I was so delighted to catch my first Clifden Nonpareil last night....I think my face says it all!

Lorna Woolhouse, Checkendon, South Oxon

Westcott, Bucks

Clear, cold nights with a bright moon are not conducive to good results from the moth-trap and that's what we seem to be getting just at the moment (the temperature on the night of the 20th, for example, fell well into single digits here before dawn).  I'll probably continue running both traps until the end of the month but, as always happens in the autumn, the twin-30wt actinic is already bringing in twice as many moths as the 125wt MV so I expect the latter will be put away soon.  On the plus side the ivy is coming into blossom locally and its flowers are always an excellent moth attractant early in the night, so if you have ivy in the garden or nearby it is worth giving it the once-over with a torch after dark.     

     (15th)  143 moths of 30 species; Beaded Chestnut new for the garden year-list.

     (16th)  155 moths of 40 species; Brown-spot Pinion, Barred Sallow & Pink-barred Sallow all new for the year-list.

     (17th)  149 moths of 31 species; nothing new for the year-list.

     (18th)  176 moths of 30 species; Monopis crocicapitella new for the year-list.

     (19th)  139 moths of 29 species; Acleris rhombana & Dusky-lemon Sallow new for the year-list.

     (20th)  55 moths of 20 species; nothing new for the year-list.

     (21st)  67 moths of 21 species; Large Wainscot new for the year-list.

Likely Monopis crocicapitella, Westcott 18th September

Brown-spot Pinion, Westcott 16th September

Dusky-lemon Sallow, Westcott 19th September

The new arrivals were very much as expected apart from Monopis crocicapitella which is a completely new species for the garden.  I'm reasonably sure that it has been identified correctly due mainly to the amount of white speckling on the fore-wing, but it has been retained for dissection to make sure that it isn't obviella.  Neither one has previously been recorded here.  Brown-spot Pinion is the Agrochola I'm always most pleased to see in the garden because I only ever get one or two per year, whereas the others and their close relatives (particularly Beaded Chestnut and Lunar Underwing) always appear in their hundreds.  Dusky-lemon Sallow is the last of the Sallows I can reasonably expect, although with a sighting of Pale Lemon Sallow not far away in Longwick last autumn I can but live in hope!

The week's only "migrant" was a single example of Plutella xylostella (16th) although some of the noctuids which visited, including Dark Spectacle, Pale Mottled Willow, Angle Shades, White-point & Turnip, may or may not have been long-distance travellers too.  Setaceous Hebrew Character kept appearing in reasonable numbers for most of the period (50+ here every night up to and including the 19th) but Common Wainscot is now well in decline.  The nightly Lunar Underwing count first reached double digits on the 17th and should keep climbing rapidly over the coming week.     

Of the other moths seen this month, late examples of Coptotriche marginea have appeared a few times.  I have had September records of adults (even an October record once) which suggest an extended second brood or maybe even a third one.  While I didn't get any late records of Beautiful Hook-tip last year, one on the 16th reminds me that September/October sightings actually happen more often than not nowadays.

Coptotriche marginea, Westcott 14th September

Beautiful Hook-tip, Westcott 16th September

Finally, a poor picture which I hesitate to add of a very worn moth taken in dismal lighting conditions (a perennial problem as the days draw in).  It was actually trapped here on the 14th but I didn't get around to photographing it until late the following day, after I'd posted last week's report.  The specimen has been retained for dissection anyway, but I've come to the conclusion that it must be a Crescent - that's unless anyone has other suggestions?  I have had Crescent in the garden once before, a rather better marked specimen appearing on 3rd August 2019 (see here).

Possible Crescent, Westcott 14th September

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks

Pausing

 

My first Comma visits the trap - joining a Small Tortoiseshell, a Brimstone, a Peacock and a Speckled Wood on the list of butterflies which have taken this unusually daring step.  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

More leaf-mines

During a dog-walk in the village yesterday I saw lots of the "snail-trail" mines of Phyllocnistis unipunctella on black poplar, all on youngish regrowth sprouting from the bases of a line of mature trees.  Those I found (20+) had finished mining and were at the pupal stage under a small leaf-edge fold which is visible on the right in the picture below. 

Mine of Phyllocnistis unipunctella on poplar, 19th September

The mines of Phyllocnistis xenia (on both white poplar and grey poplar) are similarly obvious at the moment because like unipunctella they use most of the upper surface of the leaf.  Those of Phyllocnistis saligna on willow are around too but are not quite so easy to spot due mainly to the shape of the leaf and the fact that they mine the stem as well.

I don't often pay attention to the cases used by Coleophora species, mainly because most of those I find in the garden seem to be Coleophora serratella no matter which food-plant they're on and it is just as easy to get adults from the trap dissected (thanks, Peter!).  However, having seen mention of Coleophora argentula elsewhere recently, I had a look at some dead seed heads of yarrow (Achillea) on yesterday's local walk and found three cases on the first one I looked at.  This is apparently a common moth species and (with the aid of a hand lens) would seem to be one that is fairly easy to record, yarrow being such a widespread plant.  The cases do actually stand out rather more obviously than is suggested by the image below. 

Case of Coleophora argentula on yarrow, 19th September

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks   
  

Another Dewick's Plusia

On September 15th I acceded to a request to put my Robinson trap in a neighbour's garden, but across the county boundary from me in Stony Stratford, so in Bucks (I live just inside Northants).  It was a clear night with a substantial moon, so the catch was well down on species and numbers compared to two nights previously.  Nonetheless my third local Dewick's Plusia was on one of the vanes of the trap.  The beginner moth'er, in whose garden we were, was over the moon and so was I.  Always a delight.      

Andy Harding

Eudonia pallida?

I had this moth in the trap this morning (run at my allotment in Abingdon). It could be E. pallida, but I would welcome confirmation.

David

Acleris comariana?

 Is this likely to be A. comariana, or would it require genital dissection to determine? (or is it something else completely different!)

Small Elephant

Stoke Goldington:  Hot on the heels of yesterday's Convolvulus Hawk-moth is this battered old Small Elephant. I've never had one this late before. Amazing how it can still fly!