Hornets galore!

Yesterday was the worst night for hornets so far this year. In 2 of my traps nearest the woods alongside the Waveney, I spent most of the time potting them as they came in, fortunately in a fairly docile condition. (If you let them get into the trap, they start dissecting the moths).
In between doing this, there were several moths still about, several Gold Spot, a late Reed Dagger, Yellow-tail, Small Blood-vein, 3 Webb’s Wainscot and a very dark, almost black Twin-spot Wainscot. Square-spot Rustic is still the most abundant moth with over 50 counted. Autumn moths included Large Wainscot and 3 Dusky Thorn – new for the site. Just 5 Silver Y and a Cydia amplana were the only migrants, although many of the large numbers of Angle Shades & Setaceous Hebrew Character could have been migrants. Only a few other micros still about including a few D forficella, S gigantella, C paludella and China-marks plus a couple of C hybridella.
The one that got away was a possible Rush Wainscot. Everything looked right, the colour, no dots on the wing edges. It sat perfectly still until I got the lens out to have a closer look and suddenly took off not to be seen again. – And the final count of hornets was 18.

Brian

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