Merveille du Jour

74 macro moths of 16 species greeted me in the moth trap at Mum and Dad's on Tuesday morning.  No more Radford's Flame Shoulders sadly (Portland trapped an astonishing 11 the night before!), in fact the only immigrant I caught was one Delicate, but it was still an exciting catch...

If you're a birder you will understand completely the feeling you get from seeing your first Wheatear of the spring.  Well in late autumn I get a similar buzz when I see the first one of these of the season...

Merveille du Jour

A truly stunning moth

The other highlights were my first two Black Rustics of the year along with singles of Spruce Carpet and Dark Spectacle...

Black Rustic

Regular visitors to the blog may notice that I've had a bit of a blog revamp - think it has to be done every now and then. Hope you all like :-)

Green Moths

A couple of Silver Ys and Rusty Dot Pearls were the only immigrants in my moth trap this morning. So I was very gripped when I heard a Dewick's Plusia had been caught in Colyton!

There were a couple of nice green moths in the trap though...

Always a pleasure to catch - Merville du Jour

Green-brindled Crescent - the green is almost 'frosted' on, a stunning moth!

I downloaded a few pics from my Nikon this afternoon, and found an okay one of one of yesterday's Great White Egrets...

So much better than a 'white Heron!'

Also last night I heard the first after dark Redwings going over. I have to say though, I think this is the first autumn I have seen them in the day before hearing them going over at night!

Migrant Moths

With good numbers of immigrant moths being record across the UK within the past few days, I have had the moth trap out in the front garden for the past couple of nights. I was hoping for a Convolvulus Hawkmoth or two, but failed yet again!

On Sunday night I caught 105 moths of 18 species, and last night trapped 125 moths of 22 species.

The migrants have included a garden first, with a single Vestal each night...

This was last nights one

I've also had three Silver Y's, two Turnip Moth, and singles of Dark Sword Grass and Scarce Bordered Straw....

My second for the garden

The most numerous resident moths I caught, in order of abundance were; Beaded Chestnut, Large Yellow Underwing, Lunar Underwing, Feathered Ranunculus and Setaceous Hebrew Character.

Notable non-immigrant moths included my first ever Large Wainscot...

Large it was too!

And two of these beauts....

So nice to see Merveille du Jour again!

So although I didn't get what I really wanted - I still got some nice moths.

I haven't done as much birding as I should have done over the last couple of days, but a sweep of the Estuary today showed a few Bar-tailed Godwits, a Knot, but no Semipalmated Sandpiper.

I'll finish this post with a picture of Seaton Beach and Semi-P twitchers/photographers on Saturday morning...

Pity it seems to have gone now