Dark Sword Grass

Mothing has been very slow since I've moved to Evesham, the garden is very open so is often windy and cold, a big change from my sheltered garden in Bidford.

Thinks picked up on the 21st after a warm sunny day and reasonable temperatures overnight.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a Dark Sword Grass in the trap on the morning of 22nd along with a Tawny Pinion.  Also had my first Brindled Pug of the year

Lee

 Emperor Moths - Hatterall Ridge

Took a climb up to the Offa's Dyke path running along the top of the ridge which marks the Welsh border today. Having looked at the new westmidlandsmoths website there are records of decent numbers of Emperor's up there, certainly in the 70's and 80's but not much recently. Were they still present..? yes they were, dozens of them in fact! Took a lure and they started appearing around us within 100 yds of the car park. I put the lure back in it's pot within 10 minutes, but for the next 2 hours I was regularly inspected by curious males, probably about 30 or 40 buzzed me by the time we'd reached the plateau at 600m. Once on the plateau scanning with binoculars nearly always revealed 3 or 4 motoring about in search of females. They can't have been out for long as this area had lying snow up till a week ago. Action ceased at 4:30 and we made our way downhill. It was nice to see them in numbers doing their thing, and anyway, they won't come to my garden, beleive me I've tried!

John

Emperor Moth

Emperor Moths searching at the spot where a lure was.

Pyrausta nigrata enjoying the sun

 Despite cold air temperatures the Doward's White Rocks Nature Reserve had a few Pyrausta nigrata (Wavy-barred Sable) out yesterday (17th April) basking in the afternoon sun.

Pammene giganteana

Thought I'd get in on the act with everybody using the Grapholita funebrana (FUN) lure to record Pammene giganteana. I ordered mine from eBay with a host of other lures for supposed pest species and will give those a try next. I put the pheromone lure into one of the plastic bucket type traps and hung it in an apple tree just outside my office at home. It has sat there for 4 days with nothing so I was about to give up seeing as how most have been reporting attracting P.giganteana within about 10 minutes. Fortunately I decided to leave it out overnight as temperatures were due to remain at about 7°c and to my delight there was a single specimen in there this morning. This is a new species for me and is my 21st species for my Evesham garden so not too bad.

Lee

Hello

Hi, I'm Lee and have just moved into VC37 (Evesham) from VC38 (Bidford-on-Avon).

I started moth'ing in 2014 in my garden and also the occasional field trip, I like to take a trap whenever I travel for holidays too.

My new digs are on farmland on the outskirts of Evesham so quite open but close to the river and with some nice hedgerows.

I've had the trap out over my first week with most notable being Streamer and Pine Beauty.

As today has been glorious I thought I'd give the EMP lure a run out and was delighted to have this stunner turn up. That's the lure back in the freezer until March next year.

Looking forward to hopefully contributing to the moth records for VC37 and in seeing how my new garden compares to my last which gave me some great species.

Lee

Emperor Moth

 

I was pleased to see this male Emperor Moth on the farm at Norchard, Worcs, this afternoon at 3.15pm. attracted to my new lure. I-record says that it is outside the known range for the moth. I have had no luck in my garden so far. I live three miles from Hartlebury Common where the moth has already been seen this year.