Best September Garden Catch Ever!

On Saturday night I was going to pop out for some mobile moth recording, but the threat of storms spreading up from the south was imminent, with pockets of torrential downpours on the cards from midnight, I safely wimped out.

So, not wanting to miss out on the very mild night, with lows of 17 degrees, I stayed up until half midnight, and rose at 5am.

I expected to be woken up by some rumbles and flashes, but nothing.... got up at 5, walked out to the trap and it was bone dry! Crazy, it must have skirted around us more westerly over Canbridge.

Even before I went to bed I was up to 40 species, adding a further 18 come the morning, a crazy good night for my garden.

Even better was the species cast! with 2 new species for the garden, 1 of which was a completely new moth for me, the titchy Cosmopterix pulchrimella.

Barred Red was the other newbie, a very uncommon moth on my spreadsheet over the last 18 years.

Whats more, 8 other species were added to the 2024 roster.

The full total was 122 moths of 58 species.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 603 species

21/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Autumnal Rustic 1 NFY
Barred Red 1 NFG
Blair's Shoulder-knot 1 NFY
Large Wainscot 1 NFY
Pine Carpet 1 NFY
Angle Shades 1
Black Rustic 3
Brimstone Moth 2
Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing 3
Common Wainscot 3
Delicate 1
Double-striped Pug 1
Dusky Thorn 1
Flounced Rustic 6
Garden Carpet 5
L-album Wainscot 1
Large Yellow Underwing 5
Lesser Yellow Underwing 2
Light Emerald 2
Lime-speck Pug 1
Lunar Underwing 2
Lunar Yellow Underwing 1
Marbled Beauty 1
Nutmeg 1
Pale Mottled Willow 1
Setaceous Hebrew Character 3
Silver Y 1
Small Dusty Wave 1
Snout 1
Spruce Carpet 1
Square-spot Rustic 1
Tree-lichen Beauty 1
Vine's Rustic 1
White-point 1
Willow Beauty 7

Micro Moths

 

Bucculatrix nigricomella 1 NFY
Coleophora hemerobiella 1 NFY
Cosmopterix pulchrimella 1 NFG
Udea ferrugalis 1 NFY
Ypsolopha sequella 1 NFY
Acleris variegana 2
Aproaerema anthyllidella 1
Blastobasis lacticolella 1
Caloptilia semifascia 2
Cameraria ohridella 10
Clepsis consimilana 2
Coleophora sp 1
Cydalima perspectalis 5
Epiphyas postvittana 4
Hypsopygia glaucinalis 1
Lyonetia clerkella 1
Monopis crocicapitella 1
Musotima nitidalis 1
Neocochylis molliculana 1
Nomophila noctuella 1
Plutella xylostella 2
Pyralis farinalis 1
Scrobipalpa ocellatella 12

 

Pyralis farinalis

Autumnal Rustic

Barred Red

Blair's Shoulder-knot

Bucculatrix nigricomella

Caloptilia semifascia

Coleophora hemerobiella

Cosmopterix pulchrimella

Large Wainscot

Nomophila noctuella

Pine Carpet

 

A huge improvement

Quite a few nights off recently, but with a warm front pushing in again once more from the east and the south simultaneously, the temperature at night rose.

Wednesday night it was definitely worth running the trap after a warm day and with lows of 16 degrees it certainly was warm enough for plenty of moths.

Still in that end of summer lull, but new species are returning after a year away, and old familiar faces are coming back for a 2nd or 3rd brood.

There were 3 new species for the year, 2 macros and 1 micro, very pleasing after very little lately. 

Things continued to ramp up and Saturday night was an absolute corker.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 593 species

18/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Black Rustic 1 [NFY]

Cypress Pug 1 [NFY]

Micro Moths

 

Musotima nitidalis 1 [NFY]

 

Musotima nitidalis

Acleris schalleriana

Black Rustic

Burnished Brass

Cypress Pug

Lunar Underwing

 

 

 

A week of seconds

Mothing has been pretty rubbish this past week, so I haven't had much to post about.

Quality over quantity with garden second yearly records of Delicate, L-album Wainscot & Palpita vitrealis.

An Elachista was retained for dissection.

Just the one ne for year species all week! A massive drought ensues.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 590 species

 

14/09/24 - Lunar Underwing 1 [NFY] 

Clancy's Rustic

Delicate

Elachista sp tbc

L-album Wainscot

Lunar Underwing

Palpita vitrealis

The last trapping effort before 4 nights off!

I ran my trap once more on back to back nights last Sunday/Monday and recorded a diminishing amount of species to my actinic trap.

Since then it has been far too cold to bother running it, some mornings down to 4c.

 

New for years have slumped dramatically as we slowly say good bye to summer moths, and welcome the autumn variety (much like the spring to summer lull).

Best moths were two new for the year species, an incredibly late year first fresh Pyrausta purpuralis and a proper autumn moth, the nicely toned Brindled Green.

The weather is set to turn warm, and summer might be back next week!

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 589 species

 

08/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Micro Moths

 

Pyrausta purpuralis 1 [NFY]

 

09/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

 

Brindled Green 1 [NFY]

Pyrausta purpuralis

Brindled Green

 

 

A welcome garden addition

A new garden moth graced my trap on the 6th of September, the migrant silky white Palpita vitrealis.

Having seen my first for the UK only last year at nearby Chippenham Fen, it was fantastic to add it to the garden list, moth species no.860 for the garden.

Other moths of note were year firsts of Acleris sparsana & Phyllonorycter harrisella and only the 2nd Rush Veneer of the year, what a poor year for them here!

A tiny Stigmella was retained, which will probably turn out to be either samiatella or tiliae.

Other than that, it was the usual late summer early autumn species show.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 587 species

 

06/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Micro Moths

Acleris sparsana 1 [NFY]

Palpita vitrealis 1 [NFG]

Phyllonorycter harrisella 1 [NFY]

Stigmella samiatella or tiliae 1 tbc

Stigmella samiatella or tiliae

Acleris sparsana

Nomophila noctuella

Palpita vitrealis

Phyllonorycter harrisella

Butterflies at night

What a strange ole' night it was on the 5th, Butterflies... loads of them flapping around the actinic trap come the morning, in fact there were at least 20 around the garden. 

 

Butterflies can and will migrate at night if the warm airflow is heading towards land, and this is what happened, with thousands reported on the coast for at least 24 hours.

 

I certainly have never experienced anything quite like it before (bar the odd butterfly turning up rarely). 

 

Moths were pretty good, and there were around 40 species of the usual cavalry.

 

These did include two whackers, the first Blue Underwing of the year and an Old Lady nestled in the outer egg tray, as I had photographed them before I just took some quick night time snaps of the moths in situ. 

A second Clancy's Rustic was nice, as was the 2nd Vapourer Moth of the year.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 584 species

 

05/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Blue Underwing 1 [NFY]

Old Lady 1 [NFY] 

Vapourer Moth

Blue Underwing

Blue Underwing

Clancy's Rustic

Old Lady

Red Admirals at Night!

Red Admirals at Night!

And then September went rather slow!

For a couple of nights anyway, with species around the 25-30 mark a night it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't astounding either.

New for year species dropped a fair bit, and I only added 1 on the 2nd and 1 on the 3rd. 

 

Barred Hook-tip was nice to get, a species that I missed last year.

The night after yielded the other species of Ethmia that are usually regular here, Ethmia dodecea. Quite a late first for the year record as well.

Other than that it was fairly quiet after the first of the month excitement.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 582 species

 

02/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Barred Hook-tip 1 [NFY]

03/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Micro Moths

Ethmia dodecea 1 [NFY]

Phyllonorycter ulmifoliella 1 [NFY] 

Barred Hook-tip

Ethmia dodecea

Galleria mellonella

September Starts Super!

The first night of the month was extremely monumental for my garden moth list.

For so late on in the year, it was great to add 3 new garden moths (normally the new additions fall between May and August, being the time for peak diversity).

All new species were rather unexpected, the first being a cracker of a Dotted Clay, a moth I took just under a month previous in Norfolk, and comparec to this fresh example it was rather tatty.

The second new one was Anarsia spartiella. There is very little of all stated foodplants in the area, let alone the county, probably a blow in from the Brecks towards the east.

Eudonia truncicolella was the most expected of the bunch, having taken it a couple of times at the nearby fen, but it still remains a fairly scarce visitor to the traps.

These three fabulous species were backed up by a further 3 new for year additions.

Other moths of note included several dark morpha of Scrobipalpa ocellatella, a much more contrasty Caloptilia honoratella, and a really fresh Aproaerema anthyllidella.

Moth garden list for 2024 stands at 580 species

 

01/09/24 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Dotted Clay 1 [NFG]

Micro Moths

Anarsia spartiella 1 [NFG]

Ancylosis oblitella 1 [NFY]

Bactra sp 1 [NFY] 

Eudonia truncicolella 1 [NFG]

Platytes cerussella 1 [NFY]

Scrobipalpa ocellatella

Scrobipalpa ocellatella

Anarsia spartiella

Ancylosis oblitella

Aproaerema anthyllidella

Bactra sp

Caloptilia honoratella

Dotted Clay

Eudonia truncicolella

Platytes cerussella