I had a momentous bit of mothing luck on Tuesday. I'd left the NI lure
(Trichoplusia ni) out in the pheromone trap on Monday night; on checking it
early on Tuesday morning after emptying the light trap, there was just a
single Silver Y and absolutely nothing else. I was short of time, so just left the
pheromone trap with lure still in place lying in the garden. Come early
evening when I was about to set-up the light trap again, I picked up the pheromone
trap to sort it out and was surprised to see a tiny moth jumping around inside
it. I knew that whatever it was, it would need potting before I'd have any
chance of identifying it. So, indoors with the trap, pot grabbed and I
successfully captured said moth. Too small to see what it was, but it looked
tortrix-ish. Grab an eye lens and - wow - that is one very smart tortrix that
I didn't immediately recognise but knew which candidates to look at. Not long
afterwards, I'd realised that it wasn't any of the obvious candidates and
alarm bells started ringing about a new species that was recently being
caught. A quick trawl around Facebook groups and Twitter and I got it sorted -
Pammene juniperana. I knew that would be not only new for me and VC55,
but perhaps of National significance. I risked nothing more than an
in-the-pot-shot before getting news out on relevant FB groups.
This was new to Britain in Berkshire in 2018. This year, there have been further
records in Berkshire (2nd & 8th?), Hertfordshire (3rd & 4th),
Oxfordshire (5th) and Essex (6th & 7th?). Mine is perhaps the 9th, but more
importantly it is quite geographically disparate to the others. It seems likely
this is a recent colonist; it is a Juniper feeder, and quite likely it will be
making use of cultivated Junipers too. There is no native Juniper in VC55,
though it has been planted at a couple of sites at least.
I remembered yesterday that a long while ago I bought a photography diffuser
'tent' which I always found to be a pfaff to use with my previous photography
set up. But using it would mean a good chance of a half decent shot out of the
pot with a much reduced risk of losing it, especially with the handheld TG-6.
So I gave it a go ....
.... not too shabby, but still not as spanking as in the flesh! This is pretty
tiny for a tortrix, just a shade under 4mm wing-length.
I am now certain about the ID personally, though others have - apparently -
been initially mis-identified as Cydia cosmorphorana, To my eye the similarity
is superficial (perhaps less so on a worn individual), and C. cosmorphorana is
usually a couple of mm bigger. Either way with it being such a 'new' UK
species and still potentially of National significance I'll get it gen detted
as a formality. I suspect that in due course this will be another tortrix that is shown to be
relatively well distributed through pheromone lures: I know that one of the
Essex records was to the NIG (Cydia nigricana) lure, and one of the Berkshire
records to the ARG (Pammene argyrana) lure.
post-script: confirmed male Pammene juniperana by gen det as expected
I could have picked Jennifer Juniper by Donovan as the track for this post, but that
would be like selling my soul (again). So here is a more esoteric
Juniper-themed track.
