Finally bagged a good migrant

I was beginning to think that I was going to miss out on a good migrant species during this exceptional weather, but as I was checking around the trap last night before going to bed I saw a small moth fluttering around the light. I knew I'd got something good as I didn't recognise it at all, but it looked like a pyralid species, which pointed me in the right direction for making a positive id. It was a very distinctive species so fingering through book it didn't take long to track it down, it was Spoladea recurvalis , a rare migrant from the Mediterranean region of Europe.

It was first discovered in the UK in 1951 in Surrey and since then only about 12 specimens have been recorded in the country, most of these on the south coast of England, so it was an excellent find for it to turn up in Montgomeryshire - very exciting and definitely one of the best moths I've recorded in twenty years of moth recording.

Peter.