So far this evening, I've had a very productive time sorting photos from the
trap and working through a number of gen det confirmations - essentially
adding several species to my PSL and my garden moth list at the same time. But
I'll save that for another day.
You may recall that last weekend I unexpectedly added a couple of clearwings
to the garden list. Since then, I've tried on a few days in the week with the
MYO lure for Red-belted and the FOR lure for Red-tipped, both without success.
The conditions yesterday were perfect for clearwing hunting, but I was frankly
too knackered, hot and bothered to go out after the mothing expedition on
Saturday night. I decided to try a couple of different lures in the garden to
see if anything else might be attracted. I stuck out the VES lure again, but
again Orange-tailed turned up quickly so I couldn't leave that out. I tried
the HYL lure (intended for Raspberry Clearwing) but nothing was interested in
a couple of hours. Next I hung out the CUL lure (intended for Large
Red-belted). Within 15 minutes or so there was some action, but the small
black insect darting around the trap was not going in so I swiped it in my net
....
So somehow, Red-belted Clearwing arrived when using the wrong lure - with
no response to the supposed target lure. I've only seen Red-belted once before,
a brief appearance to MYO but not lingering and not that bothered. Every other
time I've tried MYO I've had no response. I left the CUL lure out but within
another 10mins or so the trap had another two Red-belted so I pulled it in. From
the pheromone luring Facebook group it seems that Red-belted is actually more
attracted to the CUL lure than MYO - so perhaps I should try again at a few
sites and see what happens.
Later in the day, after sleeping through most of the British Grand Prix ( I
saw the first lap, nodded off during the red flagged stop and woke up with
about three laps to go) I decided to try again with the FOR lure. The
conditions were still perfect, and I've had success with this lure when out
and about late in the afternoon / early evening. I wasn't too hopeful though
and left the lure in the trap whilst I made a rudimentary effort at cleaning
the dust and bird shite off of my car. An hour or so later, I checked the trap
and ....
A single Red-tipped Clearwing, the fifth clearwing sp. new to the
garden this year. Ironically, this is the one that I was most hopeful about!
The clearwing season is probably not going to last much longer, and I doubt
there will by any others added to the garden list. Yellow-legged has resolutely failed to turn up
but I can't keep leaving out VES anyway, Hornet Moth does not respond too well
to the lure but will be over by now, and Six-belted is unlikely here despite
being one of the commonest clearwing sp. But I think there is more to come
from hanging out the lures, one way or another.
I imagine from the blog post title you were expecting me to post a link to
some dirge from a ginger-haired Mancunian .... nope.
Been blasting some great industrial/electronic-industrial/EBM tracks from the late 80s again .... not everybodies cup of tea I'm sure but, well, give it a try anyway ....
