The big list!

Conditions were fairly good on Thursday evening, and with highs of 17 degrees and little breeze, it was time to put the net to good use once more out on the patio.

I spent close to an hour searching the sky and sweeping at tiny specks in the sky, hoping that they were moths.

Now you see, when I first started this dusk netting game, I found it very difficult to differentiate between a fly and a moth.

I think i've finally cracked it. In basic analogy, flies dance and moths flutter, it's as simple as that. 

In that hour I netted a cracking 12 species, half were new for the 2025 list, result.

 

Overnight temperatures did dip away by the early hours to 8 degrees, but with calm (and most importantly cloudy) conditions, the moths were making it fairly busy once more.

 

Pick of the list were an early, smart Dewick's Plusia, a brightly coloured Phyllonorycter species (that will need dissecting) the uncommon and flighty Agonopterix ocellana and the miniscule but ever so neat Leucoptera laburnella, the latter new for the garden and the 867th species.

 

I was also lucky to disturb a new caterpillar for my records, a super Jersey Tiger that dropperd out of the large patch of stingers at the bottom of the garden.

 

We do need some more mild and calm night, but there are none on the radar currently.

Moth garden list for 2025 stands at 86 species

17/04/25 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths
 

Brimstone Moth 1 [NFY]
Dewick's Plusia 1 [NFY]
Frosted Green 1 [NFY]
Pale Tussock 1 [NFY]
Red-green Carpet 1 [NFY]
Angle Shades 1
Chocolate-tip 1
Clouded Drab 1
Double-striped Pug 2
Garden Carpet 1
Hebrew Character 1
Muslin Moth 5
Nut-tree Tussock 4
Oak-tree Pug 1
Shuttle-shaped Dart 3

Micro Moths 

Agonopterix ocellana 1 [NFY]
Anthophila fabriciana 1 [NFY] (netted)
Cameraria ohridella 1 [NFY] (netted)
Elachista rufocinerea 1 [NFY] (netted)
Leucoptera laburnella 1 [NFG] (netted)
Platyedra subcinerea 1 [NFY]
Tinea trinotella 1 [NFY] (netted)
Agonopterix alstromeriana 1
Agonopterix heracliana 1
Caloptilia semifascia 1 (netted)
Emmelina monodactyla 2
Epermenia chaerophyllella 1 (netted)
Epiphyas postvittana 1 (netted)
Lyonetia clerkella 1 (netted)
Mompha epilobiella 1 (netted)
Mompha subbistrigella 2 (netted) 

Phyllonorycter sp 1 (netted) TBC
Scrobipalpa ocellatella 1

 

Tinea trinotella

Agonopterix ocellana

Brimstone Moth

Dewick's Plusia

Jersey Tiger Caterpillar

Leucoptera laburnella

Phyllonorycter sp

Platyedra subcinerea