As Raymond has mentioned in his post, October this year was all about the warm spell mid month, producing migrants, out of season summertime moths and good numbers of some of the autumnal regulars. Not too much happened here before the 10th, with just a steady trickle of the usual species around. I didn’t trap after the 25th, with a spell of much colder weather arriving with the first frosts.
I’ll start with the out of season species. These included: Phyllonorycter coryli, Lozotaeniodes formosana, Pediasia contaminella, Crambus pascuella, Gypsonoma dealbana, Blood-vein, Latticed heath, Least carpet, Riband and Plain waves, Pebble and Oak hook-tips, Mottled rustic, Heart and Dart and Mouse moth. Some of these appeared more than once too.
Onto the regulars. Had Dusky-lemon sallow, Buttoned snout, Dotted chestnut (a few), Streak (good numbers, 19 on 21st highest number), Deep-brown dart (good numbers), Flounced chestnut (again did well), Merveille du Jour (lots, high of 21 on 15th), Turnip (loads, some possibly migrants). Both Blair’s shoulder knot and L-Album wainscot were poor, probably due to the summer drought (my large conifer in the garden died and all the grassland burnt out on site). Mallow wasn’t seen at all, normally regular. A good sighting for here was the Tachystola acroxantha on the 16th, my second record.
Now onto the main event of the month, the warm spell with the winds from southern Europe/north Africa. Like Raymond, I too failed to get any Spoladea recurvalis. However I did get Four-spotted footman (male, 10th), Palpita vitrealis (12th and 20th), Clancy’s rustic (12th, 13th and 16th, all different ones, new to my site list), Small mottled willow (17th) and my personal highlight a Clifden Nonpareil (new site record, 15th). The best night during the warm spell was the 13th in fact it is almost certainly my best ever October night here. Had 74sp and over 550 moths in 3 traps, never seen so many moths in October before was like a summer’s night! Amongst this catch was a Blair’s wainscot, another new site record. Also found were Vestal (and had another 3 on the 16th), the Clancy’s rustic already mentioned, 4 Cydalima perspectalis (Box-tree moth, also seen on the 15th and 21st) and Adoxophyes orana.
With the three new macro moths I’ve seen this month (along with some other species of moth), I’m finding it is becoming very difficult now to tell whether they are immigrants, internal UK wanderers or local breeders in Suffolk. I guess only time will tell if we start seeing lots more of them.
With November moths and Mottled umbers appearing in the latter half of the recording period, it’s feeling like the season is drawing to a close. Will the warm weather potentially returning for a while at the start of November bring in anything interesting? Has been very cold in France and Northern Spain recently with early snow falls, has this killed off any potential immigrants?
Neil
Clancy’s rustic
Blair’s wainscot
Clifden Nonpareil
Well done on the Catocala fraxini. I have yet to get one but it seems they are resident so hopefully will not be too long to wait. Have had a lot of Clancy’s Rustics in October. Again some may be resident. Still on the lookout for the Blair’s Wainscot. I think Climate change is having an ever increasing impact on our insect species. I had an exceptional peak of an ichneumon wasp species that we think proves it to be immigrant on the 10th to 13th. If I can get both referees to approve then a note will appear in press. That would be the first ‘clear’ evidence of them being migratory in the UK. Like the locusts that came into the UK on 10th.