4th in the series 'One to look out for' - the Small Brindled Beauty

I think there's something quite amusing about the Small Brindled Beauty, its a 'cheeky little chap' and one I look forwards to seeing each year. It's a fairly local and uncommon species in Montgomeryshire and usually found is very small numbers throughout its flight season which can be in February or March, but its actual flight time is usually only for a couple of weeks or so, so this can be earlier or later depending on the weather condition at the time. Its short flight time, early in the year probably accounts for the small numbers of records we have in our database and I doubt if it would ever be recorded in larger numbers, no matter how much recording was done. The dot map (shown on the species page) shows that it has only been recorded at seven different sites in the county during the past ten years, but I feel that this number could be improved upon slightly with a bit more recording.

As I've said, the moth is on the wing late winter-early spring, but the female (as with several species in the group) is wingless. The male (as can be seen below) has a quite furry appearance, especially around the thorax and is easily recognisable. It is easily attracted to light. After mating the female climbs up its foodplant (deciduous tree species), probably not far from where she emerged from her chrysalis; these include pedunculate oak, hawthorn, silver birch, hazel, elm, hornbeam and chestnut to lay its eggs. The larvae feed until fully grown, then they pupate underground until they emerge the following spring.

If you would like a bit more information on the the Small Brindled Beauty please go to its species page on our website - click here.

Peter.

January Moth Challenge 2020

The January challenge has now finished, the data is all in and has been collated in the two charts below.

This year, as last year, only nine mothers took part (and two of those were from out of county recorders), which considering the mild January we had is a little disappointing, but between us we did manage to record 28 species, which is only two species down on last years record number of species. There were 17 macro and 11 micro species recorded which resulted in 377 moths (347 macro and 30 micro), which is an excellent effort on everyone's part. Despite the fairly mild weather throughout the month,  moth numbers were well down on last years record total of 643.