Trio of clearwings.

With warm sunny weather last Sunday, Bill Last and myself decided to try and see some more species of clearwing moth. Bill had not seen either White-barred or Red-tipped clearwings, so we headed up to the SWT reserve at North Cove, a site where I have seen both species in the past. There are also Marsh pugs at this site too so that was another moth target for the day.
It was still sunny on arrival at the reserve so we headed to the ride where I had seen the clearwings before. Not too long after we had deployed the tip pheromone, the first White-barred clearwing appeared. In fact we recorded at least 5 of these at different spots (and they were all different ones as we tubed up the moths that came in). No luck with the Red-tipped however. After walking the rest of the reserve we went back to the car park for a bite to eat and I suggested putting out our Red-tipped pheromones while we ate. A good move as not too long after they were up one came in! So both target clearwings were seen, but unfortunately we didn’t find any Marsh pug.
Back at home in Ipswich later on in the afternoon, as it was still warm and I had the pheromones to hand I thought I’d put out the Currant pheromone around my own bushes to see if any were about. One came in very quickly, and was very obliging, posing on the Currant leaves in the sun.
Nice to see three species of clearwing in one day!

Neil

White-barred clearwing

White-barred clearwing

Red-tipped clearwing

Red-tipped clearwing

Currant clearwing

Currant clearwing

 

 

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One Response to Trio of clearwings.

  1. jonc says:

    Nice selection of clearwings there Neil. I’m in The Broads this weekend so will take some lures.

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