My 2017 Mothing Highlight

In March 2014 I had a Small Eggar one evening fluttering around by the moth trap. I checked what food plant they used and was surprised to find that such an uncommon moth feeds mostly on hawthorn and blackthorn. From April through to July I checked the bushes nearby for signs of the larva or their tent and found nothing. In the autumn I lightly trimmed some of my blackthorn and hawthorn as that is what they are supposed to prefer. Checked again in 2015, found nothing. More trimming in autumn, checked the hedgerows in 2016, still nothing. By 2017 I had lost interest and didn't bother checking, with only a couple of sightings of larva for Montgomeryshire I thought it was unlikely that I would ever get to see them.

In early 2017 I had obtained some pheromones for luring Burnet moths as part of a project run by Ashen Oleander at Canterbury for his PhD. In July to test the lures I went to a site about a mile away from here were I had seen some Burnets in 2016. I was putting out the lures when I noticed something odd in a small hawthorn bush a few metres away. On closer inspection I realised it was a Small Eggar larval tent. The larvae were well grown, and most were clinging to the outside of the
tent, with a few wandering around the bush munching on hawthorn leaves. I watched them for a while, most didn't stray from their tent, but some were moving quite rapidly along the branches looking for leaves to eat, or returning to the tent after feeding. There is a short video clip of them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RpGgyrSahY

The area they were in was grassland that had been allowed to scrub up, there were a number of smallish hawthorn bushes and a few clumps of gorse dotted around. The hawthorns didn't look very trimmed, but I suppose the sheep might have been nibbling at them. It is hard to understand why some species are so unusual. The habitat didn't look different to anything else around, so why arent they everywhere?

Paul Roughley