In the pot

With lots of moths around it has been difficult to keep up to date with the blog recently. Most of my time has been spent trying to identify tricky micros! This was particularly the case following Thursday night, which was my best catch of the year with 119 moths of 49 species.

On Stretton Moths we try our best to post nice natural-looking pictures of moths. Sometimes that does not happen, moths will not always settle easily and I resort to taking pictures 'in the pot'. Thursdays trap was one of those times, so apologies in advance, but the pictures show species that have not appeared here before.

Let us start with a moth out of the pot. A very smart looking Orange Swift. This is a species that Graham has recorded, but it is my first record for Batch Valley.

Orange Swift

Another species that Graham has recorded in his garden is the Cloaked Carpet. A very attractive species that I have been hoping to find and one was nestling in the eggboxes on Friday morning. This one was photographed in the lid of a pot.

Cloaked Carpet

I also had three of these geometrid moths, which took me a while to identify. The answer lying in their very worn plumage, but the basic pattern of cross lines. This is one of them, a Grass Emerald. Whilst these are an attractive green when they first emerge, they quickly become worn and lose their colour. The hindwing on this moth has retained some of the green colour.

Grass Emerald

There were a large number of micro moths, and it took me several days to identify these (with a couple too worn to be determined). One of the more attractive was the Batia unitella, another moth recorded previously by Graham. To give an indication of size, it is in the same size lid at the Cloaked Emerald above.

Batia unitella

The final one is a moth out of the pot again. Another new species for me, and I scratched my head for a few minutes until I saw a flash of the hindwing. This helped me to identify it as a Least Yellow Underwing.

Least Yellow Underwing