Wet Wet Wet

Despite the weather turning much milder this week, other commitments have made it difficult to get the trap out. On Thursday night however I was at home and ready to go. Problem was the rain, which was persistent and heavy. I usually avoid trapping in the rain, if nothing else to prevent soggy eggbox syndrome. However, I know that Graham sometimes gets good catches when it is raining - perhaps moths cope with it better than humans! So out went the trap.

And I caught some moths - four in total. Not a significant catch, but probably my best of what has been a cold year so far. My haul was a Satellite, two Dotted Borders and a Tortricoides alternalla. The usual suspects then, but a worthwhile effort.

In his previous post Graham talked about the different colours of the 'planet' and the 'satellites' on his Satellite. My Satellite last night was one of the variety when the colours of the 'planet' and 'satellites' are the same. See if you can spot the difference.

Satellite

Two Beauties!

And the weather man was not wrong. The temperature stayed around 6° and in the trap this morning were "two beauties". Well, in fact there were more than that, but two new moths for the site.

Viewers of the blog are reminded of the mistaken Small Brindled Beauty post of a few weeks ago. Now it can be put right as there were two SBB's in the trap (how could I have got that wrong?). The photos below show them and one of them approaches the dark form which exists. No confusion here with male and female, as the females are wingless.


Small Brindled Beauty

A tip from Colin Plant is that the antenna of SBB are yellow, those of PBB are brown and those of BB are black.


Small Brindled Beauty

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But perhaps you thought these were the two Beauties of the title - well no, because there is a much prettier Beauty and that is the Oak Beauty. There were two Pale Brindled Beautys too, and a Satellite, Spring Usher, Chestnuts and Dotted Borders, for a total of 13 moths.

Here are pictures of the Oak Beauty and the Satellite. Note the different colours of the "satellites" circling the "planet" from that of a previous  post.


Oak Beauty

Satellite

To trap, or not to trap .... ?

Yes, that was the question I asked at around 7 o'clock last evening as it began to rain yet again. But it seemed quite mild and so thus promising, and the trap was switched on.

And was the result disappointing? NO, in the trap this morning were 31 moths of 13 different species and what is more, 2 new species for the site and a moth I have not seen since 2002 when I lived in Yorkshire, a beautiful Bulrush Wainscot. Its caterpillar feeds inside the stems of bulrushes, Typha latifolia.


Bulrush Wainscot

The picture below is of a Satellite Moth. The name comes from the fact that the "kidney-mark" (or more technically, the Reniform stigma)  has 2 very small dots below it which look like satellites going round it. The kidney mark is either white or orange and the satellites can be white or orange too. In this one there is one of each!


Satellite

Also in the trap was a Brown-spot Pinion, new to this site. The small grey micro-moth in my previous post (23 September) is an Elachista species and can only be accurately named after performance of a technical determination of its genitalia.