So. First blog, first post and as I've been doing more mothing than birding lately, you can guess where this is going.
For those who don't know, I live 5 floors up in a flat, which is great for a bit sky-watching and picking out birds of prey (of which I've seen Buzzard, Peregrine, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk from my living room window this year) however, no garden = no moth light. So, whenever I want to run the ol' mercury vapour light, I have to hijack my parents' garden in Isleworth. It means getting in the car for 20mins instead of just walking out of a back door but until we get that little cottage in the country, that's how it is.
2013 is the first year I've really made a go of the moths (and Butterflies) and have started a garden list which already I can't wait to compare with next year. That list so far, stands at 128 species of moth which I know isn't half as much as most people doing the same but, on running the light on average of about once a fortnight throughout year, I didn't think that was too bad of a number for first attempt. Not to mention the ones in the earlier days that I quite simply didn't have the balls to attempt to ID!
On to last night, I sat around the MV light from 2000hrs-midnight and had a nice variety considering the, at times, strong breeze.
I had:
- Setaceous Hebrew Character Xestia c-nigrum
- Gold Triangle Hypsopygia costalis
- Cypress Pug Eupithecia phoeniceata
- Snout Hypena proboscidalis
- White-shouldered House-moth Endrosis sarcitrella
- Pale Mottled Willow Paradrina clavipalpis
- Willow Beauty Peribatodes rhomboidaria
- Lesser Yellow Underwing Noctua comes
- Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba
- Orthopygia glaucinalis
- Meal Moth Pyralis farinalis:
This smart litte micro was another first, Ypsolopha sequella:
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...as was this little cracker, a Beautiful Plume Amblyptilia acanthadactyla:
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Now, as for the Thorn in my side...
All year, I've been willing ANY species of the Thorn moths to the light. I'm not fussy which one, they're just a type of moth that I've always wanted to see but to this day I've not had a so much as a sniff at one. Not a sausage...until quite possibly last night! I was just starting to pack up for the night when a good size moth, of an obvious pale/canary yellow hue flew straight into my chest and under my arm. I span around quicker than John Travolta on the dancefloor, to see the big yellow blur whizz off over the 7ft hedge. Never to be seen again..
