Been gradually catching up on records that have been sat on pages of my
notebook since mid-May. I've been able to update my PSL, adding c18 species
and I still have a couple pending confirmation. I need to update my garden
lists, and of course my square list. I fully expect to be back up to date and
ready before we hopefully see another upturn in conditions.
In the meantime, here's some mothy stuff from the garden:
First up, a couple of luring successes. I've hung clearwing lures up in the
garden before, but only for an hour or so whilst I loitered watching out in
vain. Having now got a proper lure trap, I've tried a couple of lures left out
in the day. Nothing to MYO (targeting Red-belted) and nothing to FOR
(targeting Red-tipped). But the TIP lure left out whilst I was at work on 15th
June came up with a solitary Currant Clearwing - the first clearwing on
the garden list:
I also hung out the SKI lure on 13/06/2021 in the hope that I'd get
Grapholita lobarzewskii on the garden year list (the first for VC55 was
from my garden in 2018 but was completely knackered and unidentifiable on
externals). Nothing to the lure all day, then just 15 minutes or so before it was
getting dark and suddenly there were four in the trap. Really good to see a
recognisable one!
One that I will have to await confirmation, but I am pretty confident about is
this non-descript looking Gelechiid that came to the garden light trap on
13/06/2021:
It is pretty worn and plain looking, but those basal spots and the small
distinct discal spot - along with general shape and what is left of
colouration - look absolutely spot on for Platyedra subcinerea. This
species overwinters as an adult and flies again in the late spring, so you'd
expect one to be pretty shabby by now. Moreover, it should be a lot further
south and is perhaps declining - so needless to say that if confirmed it will
be new for me, the garden and VC55.
Otherwise the garden trap has been starting to tick over with a good few NFY
species in the last week or so. Here's a selection of Noctuids, and a couple
of others lazily snapped at the trap:
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!
Strong warm sunshine when I got home from work today. I decided to get the lures out and nip off in search of a couple more species.
First up, I went south to Misterton Marsh near Lutterworth. It was c17:15 when I got there - out with the FOR lure, and I didn't have to wait long before I'd potted my first target ..
Red-tipped Clearwing - a sallow feeder, usually has two complete antennae
I netted at least 10 within a few minutes - great stuff. With this success, I decided to try a local pick you own just down the road from where I live. It was 17:45 when I got there. I'd tried this site a few times when I first had lures a few years ago but without any joy. This time I decided to just hang the TIP pheromone on the nearest hawthorn to the PYO and see what happened.
I hadn't finished tying the lure onto the stem before the first clearwing turned up, and by the time I'd got my net and pot ready there were loads zooming about, at least 40. in less than a minute!
Currant Clearwing - a currant feeder (obviously!)
Superb - and especially so as this is the first time I've recorded it making it a British and County Tick for me.
Tomorrow morning I'll post a summary of recent garden trapping including some micro-firsts. Then tomorrow I'm joining others for an impromptu Bio-Blitz at Ketton Quarry including an overnight trapping effort and more clearwing-ing.
