A Few Welcome Autumn Species at last.

[melbellingham]

After several weeks without anything NFY in the garden, and just the usual few species, the last few nights have been much better.

18/09/2019 – min temp. 8.8C. 12 moths of 9 species with Brindled Green NFY.

Brindled Green

20/09/2019 – min temp. 11.3C. 34 moths of 14 species with Barred Sallow and Blair’s Shoulder-knot NFY.

Barred Sallow

Blair's Shoulder-knot

21/09/2019 – min temp. 15C. 49 moths of 21 species with Black Rustic and Frosted Orange NFY. This is only my 10th garden record of Frosted Orange in 17 years. Always nice to see.

Black Rustic

Frosted Orange

Also in this trap were Brindled Green and Red-green Carpet.

Mel.

[JulianB]

Hi Mel,

Nothing NFY last night with us, but still 35 moths of 13 species. Thunderstorms at 6ish this morning woke us, and may have washed a few more away.

A count of 10 Pink-barred Sallow was high for us; also one Frosted Orange and two Flounced Chestnuts.

The count also included some moths nectaring last night. There are fewer plants flowering now in our garden, but we have a good strand of Michaelmas Daisy that was covered in butterflies and other insects yesterday in the day. I picked two Pink-barred Sallows, one Angle-Shades and one Silver Y off this patch after dark, and a further Angle-Shades off some mint. A Carpet and another likely Silver Y escaped me before I perfected my technique of holding the torch in my teeth whilst potting up. I think I need to buy a head torch! I hadn't realised how productive the plants in the garden could be.

Regards, Julian

[melbellingham]

Hi Julian,

In 17 years I have only 26 records of Pink-barred Sallow in the garden, all singletons. Never recorded Flounced Chestnut in the garden.

You make me quite envious.

Mel.

[JulianB]

Don't be envious - Brindled Green and Blair's Shoulder Knot have never turned up in our garden, and although Steve caught a single Black Rustic here, we're never managed one. Overall it's colder, windier and wetter in the hills, so we get fewer moths; we ran two traps to get what we did last night. But we do get some that eat heather!

The Flounced Chestnut is interesting, in that down South the larvae apparently eat deciduous trees (although probably not the trunks ), but further North eat heather. In Cheshire our records tend to come from areas with heather. I wonder why the difference in diet.

Julian