Bringsty Common

It's that time of year again when I'm busy identifying all the tiddly brown jobs collected during trapping sessions. A couple of days ago I was amazed to discover I had Platytes alpinella (July 4th from the garden), which is a county first.  No record in Worcesterhsire and a single fairly recent record for Shropshire.  However it seems a long way from its usual haunts, which is coastal and mostly in the South Eastern area.  I don't often upload dissections, but thought I would in this instance.  The image is now also uploaded onto the Moth Dissection website: https://mothdissection.co.uk/species.php?Tx=Platytes_alpinella Peter Hall

E moth

The latest version of Butterfly Conservation's occasional "E-moth" newsletter is available here, including details of the annual conference for recorders which will be held in Birmingham during January.

Dark Nights

Two migrant Dark Sword-grass, and an unusual second brood Dark Arches came to light over this weekend at Norchard, Worcs, amongst ten other species.

If it's November it must be December

I ran 2 traps in the garden last night here on Bringsty Commnon as the temperatures held up nicely. 17 species in total,  15 macro and 2 micro.  No migrants at all (as per usual here).  Of interest was a single Heart & Dart and no less than 72 December moths. Full list:

December 72
Merveille du Jour 12
Feathered Thorn 9
Brick 5
Yellow-line Quaker 5
Red-green Carpet 3
Winter 2
November 2 (gen checked)
Red-line Quaker 2
Pale November 1 (gen checked)
Spruce Carpet 1
Heart & Dart 1
Mottled Umber 1
Common Marbled Carpet 1
Black Rustic 1
Epiphyas postvittana 1
Acleris sparsana 1

Bringsty Common: December moth

Bringsty Common: Heart & Dart

What is the collectoive noun for a group of December moths?  These gathered together after I tapped out the eggboxes.

Cypress carpets

As it seemed to be a milder night, I put my 40w actinic heath trap out last night in Worcester hoping to get more than the two LBAM's that I got last Friday for WGMS and also hoping for a Red green carpet as not seen one this year. I ended up with 8 moths a record for the me trapping in the winter. I had my first Black rustic of the year to my garden, a Turnip, LBAM's x 4 and two Cypress carpets which are completely new to me. Having looked in the books and the VC37 macro list I have, they seem quite rare for the area, not sure if this is still the case. Emailed CMR just in case. I've attached photos of both moths and have kept them for now.

Bringsty Common November 3rd 2018

I took advantage of the mild night and ran a single trap in the garden in an area sheltered from the stiff breeze.  Apart from plenty of German wasps and a hornet I was rewarded with a total of 14 species.  Sprawler (1), December (2) means that my list for the year is almost completed.  Still plenty of "Novemnals" about with 6 November and 2 Pale November arriving (plus a couple of females) and their octavals were inspected of course.  Commonest moth was Feathered Thorn as to be expected really (7).  Still getting Merveille du Jour (3). Most unusual moth was a second brood Shoulder-striped Wainscot. Sadly no micros. Peter Hall