After the cold rush ...

With the forecast for reasonably warm nights for Monday and Tuesday, it was a good idea to put the trap on. All the more so that it is the AGM of the Strettons Area Community Wildlife Group (SACWG) tomorrow night and it will be nice to take some speciments to show.

So, the idea proved to be a good one as there were 25 moths on Monday and nearly 50 last night, though over half were Spring Ushers.

As would be expected, since we have only been trapping here since August, each month should produce new moths and January has now done so, though nothing that could not be expected.

In December I caught an early Pale Brindled Beauty and in the trap were several more of them, but in addition, their smaller, darker 'cousin', a Small Brindled Beauty (also a bit early). Their larger 'uncle' the Brindled Beauty is still to come.

You can compare the Small and Pale versions by clicking on the "Labels" on the right.

Small Brindled Beauty

The first of the common spring micro-moths turned up in number this morning. This moth is called Tortricoides alternella, its name being much bigger than the moth is. It has no "English" name. A pleasant surprise was to find an Acleris hyemana and a Ypsolopha ustella also present. Both of these moths have featured before in the blog, but the latter without its photo..



Tortricoides alternella

 

Ypsolopha ustella

This moth can be very variable, but the small "spike" sticking up on the 'palps' (its "nose" ) is an aid to identification. This can clearly be seen if you enlarge the photo. 

Anything you can do ...

I can do as well (sometimes!) So, because the forecast was for a balmy night,  I too put my trap on, and yes, Spring was Ushered in here too!



Spring Usher

It was in the trap with 2 Mottled Umbers and an agonopterix, which I have spent a long time trying to identify and arrived at the same answer at the end as I had assumed at the beginning.
Agonopterix heracliana, a moth which can be found all year round, but, like the Spring Usher, is a first for us here.









I just could not get a better picture of the agonopterix.



Agonopterix heracliana

Sign of spring

It has finally stopped raining in the Shropshire Hills, and with blue skies and sunshine, robins in song and slowly lengthening days it feels like spring may be on its way. How very apt then that on my first trapping session of the year last night that I caught a Spring Usher. This is a new moth for us in the Strettons and one which will be on the wing for the next couple of months.

Spring Usher

As with some of the other moths of the winter, this is easily identifiable as a male as the female is flightless. It is a species that likes oak, and I like to think that the large oak tree behind the house is part of the reason it is here.

200 not out

It has been a quiet time for moth recording of late, with the usual slow-down in species on the wing combined with poor weather for running the traps. This is the time to get our records in order for the year, and an opportunity for me to update our Strettons Moth List page on this blog for the first time in a couple of months.

A quick count up shows that we have recorded 200 species of moth in the Strettons since July, when we first started to run our traps. Imagine 200 different types of moth in just five months in two small gardens in the middle of Shropshire. When I first started trapping moths I couldn't name 20 species, let alone identify 200 of them. It just shows how fascinating these creatures are, and that once you start you are hooked. As a minor celebration, here is a picture of one of my favourite moths of 2012.

September Thorn

One for the pot

In spite of running the trap on the 2 nights when we were promised a reasonably high overnight temperature, there was not a lot about.
But there was one new moth that made it worthwhile, an Early Moth, though they can appear much earlier than this.

Early Noth

A thing of beauty is a ......

A couple of warmer nights led me to put the trap on and I was rewarded by a new moth to the site last night.  Not only is it new, but it seems to be a very early record for this moth in Shropshire.

The moth, shown below, is a Pale Brindled Beauty, and I would not normally have expected it before the new year. It was one of only 5 moths in the trap this morning. On Wednesday there were 17 moths, but only Mottled Umbers and Winter moths.

Pale Brindled Beauty

Although there has not been much flying, there are still things to look out for, namely leaf miners, so a walk up the lower part of the Mynd, where there are still a few trees with leaves on, revealed some interesting mines and blotches.

Here is a photo of an oak leaf with a mine and 3 blotches and a second photo showing the mine more clearly.


Mine/blotches on oak leaf

Stigmella mine + Phyllonorycter blotch

There was a small larvae in one of the blotches and a pupa in the other. There are confusion species for both these types so one can only be certain by keeping the leaves over winter and hoping for adults to emerge. These two are likely to be S. atricapitella and P. quercifoliella.  The mine and blotch shapes and pattern of the frass (larval droppings) are both pointers to the species within, as is the host plant. There is a very good leafminers web site.

Subtle as a Brick

It has been rather quiet here on Stretton Moths in recent weeks. What is our excuse? Well, as you may have noticed, the weather has turned decidedly cold overnight, and the moths have noticed this too. Neither of us have been catching too much of interest, I have only been finding Winter Moths, which seem to still be flying in the freezing conditions.

We are not the type to give up though, and with a milder night forecast I put out my trap on Saturday evening. By the time I went to bed there were no moths to be seen, but in the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find four moths in and around the trap. Three of them were, predictably, Winter Moths. The other was this.

Brick

A bit of head-scratching ensued. I was not sure what it was, except that it was a Noctuid moth which I had not recorded before. A bit of research and it all became clear, this is a Brick. It is not a rare moth, but it is new for us in the Strettons and a nice final 'hurrah' for the autumn-flying moths (the flight season for the species extends to early December).

Like all moths, this is an incredible creature. The adults have been busily mating and generating eggs in the last few weeks, these being laid beside the bud of the foodplant (such as Wych Elm or Poplar). The larva will emerge in April and spend a few weeks munching on flowers. They will then descend and construct an underground coccoon and pupate. Next September the adult moths will begin to emerge, and the cycle starts again.