28th August 2009

After a very chilly and blustery night the catch was unsurprisingly well down with just 19 species. Again over half the 197 moths were Setaceous Hebrew Characters. The highpoint was a very bright Centre-barred Sallow, the first of the sallows for the year:


This unusual looking moth took quite a while to identify as an aberrant Vine's Rustic:

26th August 2009

It took six years but at last I'm able to tick off one of the commoner moths missing off my garden list - Six-striped Rustic. It arrived early in the evening along with large numbers of the usual suspects - the total ended up at 330 moths of 36 species. New for the year was a very smart Frosted Orange.

Six-striped Rustic:

Frosted Orange:

25th August 2009

A beautiful male Large Thorn was the star of a rather dull catch of just 42 species - nearly half of the 452 individuals were Setaceous Hebrew Characters.

23rd August 2009

A small noctuid found sitting on the wall by the actinic trap this morning had me very puzzled as I searched through the books and websites. The closest to a match that I could find was Tree-lichen Beauty, a moth not recorded in Huntingdonshire. I posted a picture on UKMoths and sent one to Barry Dickerson and within a few minutes had confirmation of the ID from Mark Hammond. From Waring and Townsend it would appear that this is the form calligrapha which 'has the green replaced by yellow'.


Rather overshadowed by this find was Emmetia marginea, a year first:

22nd August 2009

An odd mixture in the trap last night with an early Large Wainscot rubbing shoulders with a very late Heart and Dart. A second Aproaerema anthyllidella for the garden was the highlight of another very small haul of micros; I've also put a picture of a mystery tort on the unidentified blog.

Large Wainscot:

21st August 2009

Temperatures were forecast to go down into single figures during the night so I wasn't expecting much in the traps so it was a great surprise to find this pristine Bordered Straw in the MV - only the third record for the garden and the first since the influx in 2006:

19th August 2009

A warm and humid night produced an excellent catch - with work in the morning I didn't have time to count all the Setaceous Hebrew Characters but they were again in the hundreds. In all 63 species were recorded.

Latticed Heath - only the second garden record and the first since 2004:

Elachista apicipunctella: