Monday 26 July 2021

One to look out for.

 Hello "mothers"

Thought you might be interested in this which appeared in my trap during the recent hot weather, even though it was at my home in FlintshireVC51 rather than Montgomeryshire[ Sorry Peter]. After much searching of the books and eventually the interweb I discovered it was the Box-tree Moth.

It helped when I realised it was a micro [Crambid]

It is native to S E Asia and was first discovered in UK in 2008, presumably imported to garden centre in S England in box plants. It has now been reported as far as Edinburgh. In N Wales I gather there are one or two records only but this Summer it has been recorded elsewhere in VC51 so look out folks it is on the march, whether or not it has made it to Montgomeryshire only Peter would know!


It has to be a contender for "largest micro" coming in at around 4cm across.

Two other moths in my trap last night were Leopard Moth and Sycamore, both firsts for me.

I hope the warm weather has brought you all some excitement too


All the best

Alan

Friday 23 July 2021

Cors Dyfi Moth Night Event 10 July 2021

 

It was great to finally have a public event – and a fantastic location and good weather too, so everything came together for us to be able to celebrate Moth Night 2021, with the theme of wetlands, in style. 


Photo by Douglas Boyes

    We were excited to see the lovely new centre at Cors Dyfi, with a ready made terrace and benches for us to work from. 

The white sheet looked spectacular from the balcony, and indeed looked pretty good covered in moths later on in the evening.







Photo by Douglas Boyes
We were lucky enough to have Douglas Boyes join us for the evening and lead the event – many thanks to him for making the trip especially for it. Altogether 21 people attended, a mixture of members of the moth group, MWT staff & volunteers and members of the public. The first moths came in on cue as Douglas was doing his introductory talk, and answering some great questions, and kept rolling in until we turned the lights off at 2.30am. We saw impressive numbers of bats about then too....





Some of the frequent fliers of the night were Round-winged Muslin and Rosy Footman, who was an early crowd pleaser. But to be fair we had a lot to keep everyone happy – many moths that members of the group hadn't seen before. It was generally agreed that the Smoky Wave was the star of the night, but that was before the Scallop Shell (the poster moth for the Moth Night) came in, or the Gelechia sororculella (new for site and only the second record in the county since 1998) and even the Double Dart that was lurking in a trap as we packed up.


Gelechia sororculella (photo by Peter Williams)





 It was good to see the public so excited to see the glamour moths – the Elephant Hawk-moth, the Drinker, the Sallow Kitten, and Peter Williams was in his seventh heaven when the Clouded Magpie put in an appearance. One of his favourites apparently. The full list for the night available now – a very impressive total of 109 macros and 37 micros.


Clouded Magpie, photo by Mel Jones

Scallop Shells, photo by Mel Jones


Sunday 4 July 2021

Lockdown Species Challenge as of 1st. July

 Hello Moth-ers,



Moth species and numbers have certainly picked up recently and hopefully this will continue for a while to give us all chance to add some decent numbers to our yearly lists. 

The data for June in our ‘lockdown Target species challenge’ is now in and can be viewed here on our blog as well as our Facebook page. 

Please remember you can join in with this challenge whenever you like, so just let me know here, what you've recorded and I’ll add the details to the main table. 

Please note the following 'Challenge' points: 

1) That all target species will remain active in the challenge (although some may have finished their flight time), so please let me know if you record one of these at any time and I’ll update your points on the table. 

2) Also, it may well be you’ve already recorded a species before I add it to the target list, that’s fine, just let me know and I’ll add the record to the main table.

3) This challenge is open to everyone without any restrictions and you can join in whenever you like, just let me know and I'll add your name to the chart.

The target species added in July (please let me know if you’ve already have recorded one) is: -

12) Clouded Brindle - (2 points)

The target species added in previous months are (and quite a few will still be on the wing) ; -

11) Shaded broad-bar (1 point)

10) Yellow Shell (1 point)

9) Yellow-barred Brindle (1 point)

8) Tawny Pinion (2 Points)

7) Any migrant hawk moth – this might seem rather unlikely, but it does of course include the Humming-bird Hawk-moth, so everyone will have a chance to record one of these (3 points)

6) White-marked (1 point)

5) Pine Beauty (2 points)

4) Oak Nycteoline (1 point)

3) Blossom Underwing (2 points)

2) Shoulder Stripe (1 point)

1) Small Brindled Beauty (2 points)