Variation on a theme

A couple of nights ago Graham posted how he had found a new micro moth for the Strettons, Exapate congelatella, which according to records is a very rare species in Shropshire. What made this more interesting is that he caught 34 of them! Last night I caught eight of the same species, meaning that between us we have caught 42 individuals over two nights of a rarely recorded species. Of course it is unlikely that this is a truly rare moth, but more likely that, flying late in the year and being a tricky species to identify, it is just poorly recorded. But it does show how anyone has a  realistic chance of discovering a new species for the county record in their own back garden.

Moving on to the larger 'macro' moths, I also caught two new species for my garden. One of these was a Winter Moth, and other were two Mottled Umbers. The Mottled Umbers were particularly interesting, as I caught two quite different variations of this species. So much so that it took a while to identify them, but if you look carefully, the pattern of the dark spot halfway up the forewing and the 'cross-lines' is consistent.

Oh what a night .....

-- late September (yes, I know it should be December back in '63), but it rained and rained and did not look like there would be ANY moths in the trap this morning. So it just goes to show that the moths (which are of course waterproof) came out to celebrate Europe's Ryder cup win!

First of all there was a Yellow-line Quaker another moth which I never caught in 9 years of mothing in France.  

Yellow-line Quaker

                    
Then there were 2 Chestnuts, fairly common, but new for this site - well, that is not difficult as recording only started in mid-August.

Chestnut

Also was the more common form of the Mottled Umber, clearly different from my post dated 23 September.   

Mottled Umber

and another Anomalous, a Black Rustic and a total of 21 moths of 12 species. In addition there was a funny looking Common Marbled Carpet, which refused to open its wings. It has refused to do so throughout the day, so my photograph is not too good, BUT, it does show why I thought it was "funny looking". The reason is that it is actually a Spruce Carpet.

Spruce Carpet

Also, you may recall the photos I posted showing a Lilac leaf which had  leaf mining moth caterpillars in it, well, these have grown too big to still live inside the leaf and have made silken pockets in which to pupate.


               "Lilac leaf-miner"

Saturday Night Fewer

With the cooler nights now we can expect fewer moths in the trap and such was the case last night, however there was a new moth for the site, a Mottled Umber, not unexpected, but perhaps a little  early. This is a very variable moth - its Latin name is Erannis defoliaria.


Mottled Umber

                                                                       
A second new moth was however one of the very small micro-moths


Unidentified

and as yet I have not been able to identify it. But see below!

Firethorn Leafminer

In the garden yesterday was a Firethorn Leaf-miner, presumably one of those hatched from the leaf mines on the pyracantha bushes mentioned a few posts ago,











And in the house, a White-shouldered House-moth, which, unlike its neighbour the Brown House-moth, feeds on dead animal and vegetable matter.

White-shouldered House-moth

  
The moth has now been identified (by CW Plant) as Elachista canapennella.