Too dark to do anything useful when I get home from work, and I've left the garden traps off despite the mild conditions as I have no time to do them in the morning this week. So, to fill the gap here are a few old shots of mothing memories. In fact, they are so old that the resolution is pretty crap and I can't make the images much bigger than they appear on this page, so for a change don't even bother clicking on them.
White-speck
I was never an annual on Scillies - I genuinely felt that going every year would nullify the enjoyment. In 2001 (my last visit) I stayed at Borough Farm on
Tresco for a week with
Andy Mackay,
Rob Fray and
Richard Fray. My two previous visits to Scillies before this were in 1996 and 1999 - both awesome years for major rarities. However this year was the first that I was as much, and perhaps more, interested in the moths we might see.
Humming-bird Hawk-moth
Turned out to be pretty good, with the species taken in the week including a few fairly standard migrants that I was seeing for the first time like Humming-bird Hawk-moth, Four-spotted Footman, Pearly Underwing, Palpita vitrealis, Vestal and The Gem. Also good local species like White-speck, Shore Wainscot, Cypress Pug and Scillies subspecies of Feathered Ranunculus and Shuttle-shaped Dart.
Palpita vitrealis
The best night though was 12th October, when the catch included the following:
Grass Webworm (Herpetogramma licarsisalis)
Once the ID had been established (not straightfoward whilst on Scillies seeing as it is not featured in any British reference books) it was confirmed as only the second British record. This species is widespread in the Old World tropics including parts of central Africa and extending to Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Phillipines. It was first recorded in Europe in the Algarve region of Portugal in 1997, and rapidly colonised southern Spain and the rest of Portugal. The first British record was from the Isle of Wight in 1998. There have been a couple since our Tresco individual but still a very rare species here, a presumed immigrant from the adventive European population.
Actually, only hours after potting this moth in the early morning I was out and about seeing
Rose-breasted Grosbeak on St Martin's after an infamous boat-swap somwhere between Tresco and St Mary's, and then later a
Paddyfield Warbler on St Mary's - what a major day! The rest of the week was less intense, though a drunken golf buggy joy-riding incident still makes me smile ....
White-speck
I was never an annual on Scillies - I genuinely felt that going every year would nullify the enjoyment. In 2001 (my last visit) I stayed at Borough Farm on Tresco for a week with Andy Mackay, Rob Fray and Richard Fray. My two previous visits to Scillies before this were in 1996 and 1999 - both awesome years for major rarities. However this year was the first that I was as much, and perhaps more, interested in the moths we might see.
Humming-bird Hawk-moth
Turned out to be pretty good, with the species taken in the week including a few fairly standard migrants that I was seeing for the first time like Humming-bird Hawk-moth, Four-spotted Footman, Pearly Underwing, Palpita vitrealis, Vestal and The Gem. Also good local species like White-speck, Shore Wainscot, Cypress Pug and Scillies subspecies of Feathered Ranunculus and Shuttle-shaped Dart.
Palpita vitrealis
The best night though was 12th October, when the catch included the following:
Grass Webworm (Herpetogramma licarsisalis)
Once the ID had been established (not straightfoward whilst on Scillies seeing as it is not featured in any British reference books) it was confirmed as only the second British record. This species is widespread in the Old World tropics including parts of central Africa and extending to Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Phillipines. It was first recorded in Europe in the Algarve region of Portugal in 1997, and rapidly colonised southern Spain and the rest of Portugal. The first British record was from the Isle of Wight in 1998. There have been a couple since our Tresco individual but still a very rare species here, a presumed immigrant from the adventive European population.
Actually, only hours after potting this moth in the early morning I was out and about seeing Rose-breasted Grosbeak on St Martin's after an infamous boat-swap somwhere between Tresco and St Mary's, and then later a Paddyfield Warbler on St Mary's - what a major day! The rest of the week was less intense, though a drunken golf buggy joy-riding incident still makes me smile ....
