TIP / FOR

Prior to the Heart and Club in my last post, I'd recorded six individuals from the garden. All were singles, with the first in 2011 - my 13th year of garden trapping. Aside from my garden records, I've only recorded this species twice whilst out and about, so until recently it was a fairly uncommon moth in VC55. Last night, in one garden trap, I had five! This is an amazing turn up, and it'll be interesting to see whether this upward trend continues.

Other news - remember that leaf-mine on willowherb from the garden? Well, out popped a fresh Mompha langiella yesterday - one that was new to VC55 fairly recently and new to my garden last year.

Anyway, today was very warm and sunny. I was at a hospital pre-op first thing, and then back in work whilst the weather just got better. Whilst it was getting a bit late for it, I headed out with a couple of pheromone lures locally early this evening. First stop was the local PYO at Whetstone Pastures. Barely 3mins of exposed TIP lure and I'd recorded five Currant Clearwings - despite the wind blowing the scent away from the currants. This was at c6pm, but encouraged I headed down to Misteron Marsh where around 25mins later I was exposing my FOR lure. This was not so easy, and after around 10mins I was just about to give up when a single Red-tipped Clearwing appeared. Excellent - the new lures work a treat!

Currant Clearwing - Whetstone Pastures 28/06/2019

Red-tipped Clearwing - Misterton Marsh 28/06/2019