I didn’t make the Orfordness trip last night due to a leaky car but on the way home from the garage this morning I cycled up to Orwell Country Park to have a look at the Prickly Lettuce and managed to find 4 small larvae on the seedheads. I last checked about a couple of weeks ago so it would seem that they’re just appearing now.
There’s been a record of the adult moth at Stowmarket this year so good places to look might be in the vicinity of the A14 from Felixstowe to Stowmarket and beyond, although if you see the foodplant anywhere it would be worth checking.
Here’s picture of a similar-sized larva that I took last year. I’ve also seen green forms of the larva.
Tony
On the way home from the Orfordness meeting this morning I stopped beside a few plants of Prickly lettuce along Hall lane, Foxhall (only a short distance away from the golf course and the A12) to check for Small ranunculus larvae after the tip-off from Tony. Found 3 pretty much straight away, at the same stage as the ones in Tony’s photograph. I’ve also noticed a lot of the foodplant growing along various roads as I’ve been traveling around Suffolk so that seems to be doing well this year, maybe why the moth has started showing up in new places. Didn’t find any larvae on plants by the quay at Orfordness however.
Neil
Negative searches at both Landguard and Kirton creek on Sunday 5th.
Neil