The end of the summer brings 50 shades of brown.

Didn’t trap the early part of the last week of August as here on the Heathland soil the temperature really dropped away overnight with few moths seen flying at dusk. However both Thursday and Friday nights were much warmer with a bit of cloud cover so the traps were out. Both nights brought in around 95sp, with Friday certainly the better of the two with my 1 MV trap put out in the garden stuffed full of moths. Brown was the predominant colour of species caught, but there was a bit of colour with the first sallow of the year, a Centre-barred on Friday. Pleased to get this as I know for most recorders this is a common species but here it is quite rare with normally only 1 or 2 observations a year (Ash trees are scarce in this area on the dry soils). Also colourful was the Frosted orange on the 30th. Other observations of note have included the following. Light emerald has been abundant, almost the commonest macro trapped on the 29th. Hedge rustic now out in numbers, plus Feathered gothic starting with 8 seen so far. 1 Tree-lichen beauty on 29th. Underwing numbers now building up a bit but still not in what I would call ‘normal’ numbers. First Lunar yellow for the year has now appeared, strange it hasn’t been caught sooner as it breeds on site! Nice to be seeing some second brood Common wainscot and Small square-spot, these 2 have been struggling for a few years now. 2 Satin wave caught on 29th. Platytes alpinella caught the same night, first for the year. All the following caught on the 30th: Stenolechia gemmella, Coronet, Flame carpet, Pyralis farinalis, Cochylidia implicitana, Epermenia falciformis (2), Agonopterix ocellana, Bucculatrix maritima (2nd site record, first only a short time ago) and Depressaria badiella (new site record).

Neil

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