On county moth night here at IGC, I caught 28sp in 3 traps, all due to the cool clear conditions. Last night, my one trap in the garden caught 74sp! It certainly seemed much warmer in the evening. Nothing too spectacular caught, first records for year of Hedge rustic and Flounced rustic, a runt Common emerald (probably a second brood).
Neil
Brian Jones and I went to Scale Marshes, St Olaves with a view to target for Fenn’s Wainscot as Scale Marshes are the overflow grounds for Fritton Lake where Fenn’s was recorded in the thirties. There is some fantastic habitat there but access is the downfall. Approaching from the A143 end of the site we failed to make it to the interesting habitat,due to dense vegetation, and got no where near the Reedbeds. A line of four traps were set out on a perfect night night for mothing. On the first trap round the furthest trap was shut down due to numbers of Hornets. The remaining three traps produced C82 species, the best of which probably good numbers of Webb’s Wainscot. Reed Dagger, Crescent. Twin-spotted, Bulrush and Brown-veined Wainscot, Small Rufous, Birds Wing and gigantella.
The Belton Fen trip I arranged after the struggle to trap Scale Marshes, as it is easy trapping there. Another night of 82 or so species again with no outstanding highlights, of which some of the best were; Pinion-streaked Snout, Cream bordered Green Pea, Rivulet, Flame Carpet, Old Lady. Micros; microdactyla, Pyrauatra despicata, gigantella.
I had 7 species on sugar when I got home including Old Lady. I don’t feel very inspired to trap of late but perhaps tonight!
I saw 5 Six-belted clearwings drawn to the Api lure this morning at Languard, all of them appearing within about 30 seconds.
Small Ranunculus moths have been turning up at traps since the late 1990′s in Suffolk. Once a common species Small Ranunculus died out locally in the late 19th century. Since the late 1990′s adult moths have been recorded at light primarily in the south-east area of the county – Bawdsey, Felixstowe, Trimley and the south-west-side of Ipswich.
A group of us (Neil Sherman, Matthew Deans, Paul Bryant and myself) were looking for larvae down at Landguard Common last Friday, 12th August, and Neil spotted larvae of Small Ranunculus on some rather diminutive Prickly Lettuce flower-heads. After a period of further searching along the vegetated shingle beach we managed a total of eleven larvae. This is the first record of larvae in Suffolk in over a century and useful evidence that the species is breeding in the county.
There is plenty of the foodplant growing along the A14 and A12, although accessing it to search is a bit hazardous. It may be that this has formed a corridor for the species, enabling it to spread from Felixstowe ,where it first appeared, all the way up to Ipswich and possibly beyond.
The following day I had a search of the area next to the A14 near Trimley and found eleven larvae within a short period of time. Moving onto Ipswich a further eight larvae were found near Orwell Country Park.
Most of the larvae found were final instar, with the odd one being a bit smaller. Although the few I took home to rear have all gone down to pupate there may still be a slight chance of finding larvae in the next week or so but further searches to see if we can add a few more locations for the moth will probably have to wait till next year.
County moth night is set for Saturday 20th August.
The plan is for moth recorders in Suffolk to run their traps on this evening and send in the results to me for a snapshot of the moths on that evening. This is in a similar vein to National Moth Night, which isn’t running this year.
Send your results in by the end of September and I’ll publish a summary of the results here on the blog.
The moth group is holding a joint meeting with SNS and BC at Purdis Heath for the evening. Meet up at 8.00pm in the layby on Bucklesham road – all are welcome to come along. Details on the events page.
Tony
Quite a lot of moths in my garden trap last night, certainly the most moths I’ve seen in there for a while. 84sp noted, with the best moth Conobathra tumidana, my 3rd site record.
Last night did not look too promising after a day of rain, and I nearly didn’t bother to run a trap. A check at dusk showed that it was still quite mild and cloudy, so I put a trap on in the garden not expecting too much. How wrong I was – lots of moths in the trap in the morning, 98sp in total with the best moth a Dotted footman. I had 3 Large yellow underwing too Paul!
Brian Jones and me were at this site again on another excellent night, I make the total 135 species of which the undoubted highlight was Dentated Pug, thanks to Neil for the id from my photo, also of interest Yponomeuta rorella, Morophaga chorogella, Borkhausenia fuscescens, Athrips moufetella, Bryotropha terrella, Clouded Magpie, 4 Reed Dagger, 10+ Crescent, Olive, numbers of Twin-spotted Wainscot, Small Phoenix, Dark Spectacle and plenty of Brown-veined Wainscot.
Dark Spectacle has occured frequently this year in my traps at home and on the three visits out with Brian. On 28 July at home 2 Reed Dagger and my first record for Crescent were taken with a single of each on 1st August along with 6 White-point and single Twin-spotted Wainscot.
Apologies for the belated posting. Tuesday night was my best night of the year with approx 60 species. The real suprise was an Agdistis bennetii found sitting on top of the trap (and now safely potted up waiting to be photographed). Other highlights included single Lesser-spotted Pinion, Udea lutealis, White Satin, Oak Hooktip, Campion and Early Thorn. I even managed 3 pronuba!
A few interesting species seen from traps run last night in an area of fen on the golf course, wasn’t as many moths as I thought there would be probably due to the thunderstorm just before dusk. Notables included Acleris shepherdana (second site record), Webb’s wainscot, Crescent (3), Fen wainscot, Dotted fan foot. About 90sp caught.
Last few nights have been good for trapping, but very few migrants seen, only a single Plutella xylostella and a few Silver Y and White point. Very few underwings of any description.
