Many Moths!

Just a quick moth update - be nice to have this blog fully up-to-date!

Since my last mothing post I have run the trap at Mum and Dad's on five nights. And as to be expected with the nights cooling off and the year progressing, overall numbers are dropping but there's still heaps of variety and plenty of potential.  I'm ever hopeful of a garden Convolvulus Hawkmoth so don't expect any less trapping to take place over the next month - fingers crossed this is my year!

First up was the night of 22nd August which gave me 178 moths of 28 species. Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, Vine's Rustic and Large Yellow Underwing were the top three species quantity-wise, with the pick of the catch quality-wise being two Orange Swift (don't see many of these here), Mocha and my first Canary-shouldered Thorn of the year...

Orange Swift

Canary-shouldered Thorn

My next trapping night was 25th August which gave me 184 moths of 28 species. Top three species in numbers same as the last catch (although in a different order, Vine's Rustic now top), with the highlights being singles of Dark Sword Grass, Mocha, L-album Wainscot, Chinese Character and three Silver Y....

Dark Sword-Grass

Chinese Character

I trapped the following night too because the weather looked so promising, this produced a much better 226 moths of 35 species.  Same top three species quantity-wise, with 75 Large Yellow Underwings making up a large percentage of the catch.  The highlight was, incredibly, my second Jersey Mocha in under a month (first HERE), along with singles of Maiden's Blush, Four-spotted Footman and Dark Sword Grass.

Jersey Mocha #2.  Although more battered around the edges than my first, what is there is brighter and fresher.

Maiden's Blush

Roll forward to 29th August (after a spell of poor weather) and 101 moths of 21 species trapped.  Setaceous Hebrew Character replaced Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing as the third most numerous species, with some nice snippets of quality from singles of Four-spotted Footman, Maiden's Blush, Silver Y, Small Mottled Willow and a lovely Portland Ribbon Wave...

Portland Ribbon Wave

Male Four-spotted Footman, not caught any females this year

Small Mottled Willow

And finally we come to my most recent catch, the night of 2nd September and the 176 moths of 22 species this gave me the following morning.  Same top three as the last catch and the highlights were singles of Silver Y, Dark Spectacle and Pale Mottled Willow...

An awful photo of a Pale Mottled Willow - sorry it's so rubbish, I was going to take more but it flew off!

Dark Spectacle - a classic example of one (and note three separate kidney marks, in Spectacle the two nearest the head are usually merged to make one big one)