Saturday 13 October 2018

Mild weather brings us a scarce migrants

I had a good species list in the trap last night due to this very mild spell and in amongst them was a rather worn pyralid species which I didn't immediately recognise. After an initial bit of searching through my reference books I discovered it was a Spoladea recurvalis a species which has only been recorded in the UK on less than a dozen occasions. Something in the back of my mind told me that it had already been recorded in Montgomeryshire and when I checked our database I found out that I had recorded it once before in 2011, an excellent find indeed.

Spoladea recurvalis

On the 10th October I also recorded another good migrant species for us when I found a Palpita vitrealis (below) resting on the foliage near my trap. A bit of a tatty individual, but only the 6th record for the county.



Try to keep your traps running during mild weather as you might also be rewarded with a nice migrant species.

Peter