New arrivals at IGC including an unexpected moth from the north.

With the cooler recent nights bringing a halt to moth recording, I’ve had a bit of time to stop and catch up! Some nights last week were very good, with respectable numbers of moths caught. Species counts not as good as July but this is to be expected as the season is moving on. I was pleased to pick up some new site records, starting with a Golden-rod pug on the 11th. This was a quite worn specimen, but still had a bit of a whitish spot on the thorax that raised my suspicions when I saw it. A check of the anal plate revealed the distinctive spanner shape, confirming the record. Matthew has also taken this species recently so its one to watch out for. On the 14th, found a specimen of the uncommon Ypsolopha horridella in my garden trap, another new site record and only the second time ever I’ve seen the species. The night of the 13th was a warm one with threatened rain that never really arrived. It was in one of the traps I ran that night that the unexpected species of moth was discovered. It was a large, brightly coloured species of tortrix that I did recognize, having seen it before on moth trapping trips up in Scotland. It was a Phiaris schulziana, a moth that feeds on Heather and Crowberry and can occur up to 1000m altitude. What on earth was a moth from Northern England and Scotland doing here in East Anglia? One of the foodplants is present on the site (Heather), but the moth probably isn’t a resident. Did it fly south to avoid the weather in Scotland, with the summer there the worst for 30 years apparently? Or from further afield, maybe Scandinavia? Guess I will never know. Can’t find any other references to the species on the Suffolk moth guide so it is probably new to Suffolk.
Hopefully warm conditions will return bringing with them more unusual moths, it certainly has been an interesting late summer so far.

Neil

Ypsolopha horridella

Ypsolopha horridella

The unexpected northern tortrix - Phiaris schulziana

The unexpected northern tortrix – Phiaris schulziana

 

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