Last night's mothing effort at The Drift near to Pickworth was, as expected, superb. To be honest it couldn't be anything but given the fact that I've not sat by a sheet for just over two years.
The Drift is actually a long rough road/track that heads through the middle of nowhere. It becomes impassable to cars after a while, though it's not exactly a regular route for anything. The verges along the track are full of flowering vegetation, and there are plenty of mature trees in the hedgerows.
Pretty much from the off, the sheet was alive with inverts. Lots of moths of
course, but literally 1000s of water boatmen (Corixidae), 100s of Carabids and
plenty of other non-leps. But this was about the moths - and given my lack of activity in the last
couple of years (and to be honest I'd not done a lot for a couple of years
before that either) there was always going to be a few that I'd not seen for a
while.
Top billing though goes to a new moth for me, and one that has very few VC55
records ....
Sitochroa palealis
Just the one, but we also had a few of its close relative ....
Sitochroa verticalis
This site is turning out to be excellent for a good range of species, and in
particular Four-spotted seems to be doing well here. We only saw three as it is likely to be between broods.
Here's a few that I snapped on the sheet:
Minor Shoulder-knot
Round-winged Muslin
Black Arches
Latticed Heath
Pine Hawk-moth
(Dishevelled) Ruddy Carpet
Cochylis dubitana
Acrobasis suavella
Twin-spot Carpet
And a couple I potted to snap:
Pammene aurita
Recurvaria leucatella
The draft list is at c140sp - pretty good going for one sheet manned from
dusk to c01:30.
On the way home, we had to go over cattle grids and through a field with sheep. It was a
bit surreal; the sheep were sleeping on the road and reluctant
to move. It was like they'd been smoking crack.
