Ran 2 traps in an area of wet Alder carr woodland on the site on Thursday night, has produced some interesting moths in previous years. Pleased to find the outside of both traps covered with moths in the morning, mainly Mottled beauty (c.35 seen), Dingy shell (c.15), Common white wave and lots of tortrix sp. Certainly the best night I’ve had this year so far for numbers of moths, but the species count still didn’t break the 100 with around 95sp noted. Moth of note included Shaded fan foot (first record for the year, over 2 weeks later than normal), Scarce silver lines, Blotched emerald, Olindia schumacheriana, Scallop shell, Bucculatrix cidarella, Nemapogon metaxella, Archips crataegana (2) and Blastodacna hellerella. Other observations of note were the good numbers of May highflyer (c.15) next to around 6 July highflyer, something I’ve not seen before. I’ve had the odd May along with Julys before but not this kind of number and not in fresh condition. Crambus lathoniellus has now been replaced with Chrysoteuchia culmella. Tortrix viridana, Aleimma loeflingana, Archips xylosteana and Gypsonoma dealbana now out in numbers.
With warm weather set to carry on hopefully moth numbers will continue to increase.
Neil