Target species for this meeting was the Fen square-spot which we have seen at this site in the past but not for a few years now, plus the other nice fen species also found here.
With the warm conditions, this promised to be a good night, and we weren’t disappointed. We placed 7 lights (1 actinic) along the track running between the areas of fen and waited to see what came in. Didn’t take too long for moths to get going and we were soon very busy. All traps recorded lots of moths, and perhaps a few too many midges for comfort!
This turned into an almost all night session, with the traps packed away at around 3.30am. My list at the end of the night stood at 217sp (120 macros), the best count of the year so far for the group. Highlights included: Small rufous, Striped wainscot (lots), Acleris lorquiniana (one of this rare Purple loosestrife feeding tortrix, has been noted here by us in the past), Coronet, Brown scallop, Brachima inornatella, Lesser cream wave (a few), Lesser spotted pinion, Epinotia cruciana, Valerian pug (a few, a known site for this species), Dotted fan-foot, Silky wainscot, Garden tiger (1), Blackneck (2, both at Paul’s actinic trap), Double lobed, Lilac beauty, Dark umber, Mompha propinquella, Fen wainscot and Lempke’s gold spot (a few, again, a known site for this moth). A tortrix moth caught in one of my traps had us scratching our heads for a while – nobody immediately recognized it. Checking Phil Sterling’s micros book was a bit inconclusive, could either have been Ptycholomoides aeriferanus (which didn’t look quite right and also the habitat seemed wrong as it feeds on Larch) or a female Olindia schumacherana (habitat better for this species). Once checked at home and in daylight against photos on the web turned out to be the former species, certainly a moth I’ve not seen before and possibly new for most people present, so that goes down as moth of the night for me. By this comment, you can see that unfortunately we were unsuccessful at recording the target moth on this occasion. Something to try for another year.
Neil