The travelling trap

As part of the SACWG survey, "Moths in YOUR garden", the trap has travelled twice in the last few days. On the 2nd, it was taken to Wall and the trap was placed in the back garden with a huge expanse of fairly bare fields beyond and very few trees in sight. So it was a pleasant surprise the following morning to find more than 50 moths in (and around) the trap, with 11 species and our first Brindled Beauty - 3 of them.



Brindled Beauty (from Wall)

On Sunday the trap travelled to Gulley Green to an environment which looked ideal for moths, set in 10 acres of woods, valleys and gardens, what could be better?
Yes, you guessed, the night was not as warm as promised and with a cool breeze and a clear sky we were somewhat disappointed to find around 30 moths of 7 species.

At home it was a similar story, except that the warm days led to a few micro-moths hatching out from some of the leaf-mines which I had collected last autumn.

You may recall (or look back) the mines on lilac (14 September blog) which all hatched out - Gracillardia syringella and on the blog of 17 December the leaf mines on Beech. These turned out to be Phyllonorycter maestingella.



Gracillaria syringella



Phyllonorycter maestingella

 

In addition, the lovely purple and white larva shown on the 6th October blog did indeed confirm the Ling pug, as predicted.

Ling Pug