I have recently been organising all my moth photographs,
adding the new ABH checklist numbers and changing the names where necessary. It
was a long job with photographs of moths and dissections on both my computer
and Flickr. During the process I repeatedly found myself thinking ‘I haven’t
seen that species in the garden for ages’ so I decided to check my records for
the facts.
I remember the summer of 2006 as being the best season for
moths since I became seriously interested in 2003. A good year for migrants too,
when even my poor-for-migrants garden recorded Bordered Straw, Scarce Bordered
Straw and Small Mottled Willow. In checking the records I discovered there were
no less than 50 species recorded that year that I have not recorded since, including
lovely moths like Scallop Shell and Netted Pug.
 |
| Netted Pug, Halesowen 2006 |
A decade on the general decline of moths is also, probably,
partly responsible for my failure to record some of those 50 species since
2006, although I continue to record a handful of new ones each year and in 2015
a friend of mine, just a stone’s throw away, recorded several species in his
garden I have not seen here, so there is still potential for more garden firsts.
Whatever the reasons behind fluctuating moth records, here’s
hoping 2016 is a good one for all of us!
Patrick Clement
Find of the day (the only find) was a Large Yellow Underwing larva which was disturbed as we removed the turf.
