Going for gold

The weather may have turned cold and rainy, but last week there was still some warmth and moth activity. I ran the trap on Monday night and was pleased to record three new species, along with a couple of 'NFY' (new for the year) moths. Undoubted highlight was this Gold Spot, a moth which is typically found in damp habitats.

Gold Spot

Unlike this rather handsome moth, the other new two species had seen far better days. In fact one of them took me quite a while to identify. The first had suffered from a bit of battering, this Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing. Despite having much of it's wings missing, the markings were still clear.

Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

The other new moth was a different proposition. Moths belong to Lepidoptera, and the literal translation of this is (lepis) scale (pteron) wing. The reason is that the wings of moths are covered with a huge number of tiny scales, which give the patterns and colours. As moths age so do these scales age, fade and disappear. This means that moths become'worn', which leads to much head-scratching when trying to identify them. This Chevron moth is great example, when fresh these are beautiful yellow and orange moths. In this instance I caught two of these grey looking insects!

Chevron

My two 'NFY' moths were in much better shape. It was a welcome return for the Hedge Rustic, an attractive moth of dark hues which is quite common here in the autumn.

Hedge Rustic

I also had this November Moth 'agg.' This is one of a group of moths which are virtually indistinguishable from each other, without resorting to some drastic measures of dissection.

November Moth agg.

Knots landing

A cloudy night was forecast, so out went the trap. I had attracted a Barred Sallow to my porch the night before and given Graham's productive session felt there may be something new in the offing. I was right. Three new species for me, and two new ones for us in the Strettons. Well, sort of, as one of the moths I cannot identify to exact species, but more of that later.

Before I went to bed I checked around the trap and was pleasantly surprised to find a Grey Shoulder-knot. This was not a moth on my radar, so was a very nice surprise. It is a good looking moth, as I am sure you will agree.

Grey Shoulder-knot

When I opened the trap this morning there were another ten moths in the trap. This included the usual suspects, a couple of Flounced Rustics and four Lunar Underwings, along with two Eudonia angustea, which is a micro moth that I regularly catch.

There was also a Satellite, a moth that Graham has caught a few of in recent weeks, but the first time I have recorded it. I also had an Epiritta species, a group of moths which includes three very similar species - November Moth, Pale November Moth and Autumnal Moth. Of the three, the November Moth is the most likely to occur, but all are possible and there appears to be some debate as to how easy it is to distinguish the different species. On well-marked individuals the forewing markings can help, whilst males can be identifed through their genitalia when viewed under a hand lens. Alas, my specimen was a poorly-marked  female, so it has gone down as November Moth agg. for my records, unless Graham can shed some more light!

November Moth agg.