Something Good

It's been a great weekend weather-wise, with a good few insects finding their way onto my square list.

I stuck out a pheromone lure in the garden yesterday afternoon (MOL lure for Grapholita molesta). I was hoping that one of the Pammene sp. that are coming to this lure would turn up, more in vain hope than expectation, but literally within a minute of putting it out a small moth was flittering about the trap before going in. I secured it in a pot and was pretty sure it was Pammene suspectana, with rapid confirmation from a FB posting. There are no previous VC55 records, although I've since picked up that Keith Tailby had a few to a lure on Friday. I'll get it gen detted to support the record, but I have no doubts personally. The weird thing about this though is that it turned up very quickly, but I left the lure out and in the subsequent 24hrs it attracted one aphid.

The garden trap has also livened up a bit, although overall numbers are still low. There have been a few NFY species over the last three nights including these:

Campion

Sandy Carpet

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Pale Tussock

Flame Shoulder

Today I grabbed a couple of hours in the square sweeping and swiping my nets. I've ended up with a fair few pots to work through, and I grabbed some very quick photos of a couple of beetles, with the first being a tick ....

Plateumaris sericea

Anthonomus pedicularius

Hylesinus varius

And always good to see a few of these whilst out and about ....

Swollen-thighed Beetle