Micro Moths

I am still putting the moth trap out on suitable "mothing" evenings. Numbers recovered vary from say ten to about thirty each night. No hawkmoths yet but I have had a few other nice specimens. The most common capture are always the Noctuidae family. They all count but this family is like the warblers of the birding world. A lot of them look very similar and I am spending hours trying to identify them.

There are always a few micro moths in the box each morning. You tend to ignore them at first but then you start to note some interesting specimens. This Olive-tree Pearl had the looks to be impressive. Big for a micro moth, at 26mm wingspan, but translucent and looking very delicate. Then you read that it is an immigrant and is not known to have bred in the wild in this country. Delicate it may be but that means that it has survived a sea crossing of more than twenty miles. Southerly winds would help the migration but a strong wind would probably tear it apart.

Olive-tree Pearl - Palpita vitrealis

The Twenty-plume Moth is the only member of the Alucitidae family in Britain. Each wing is divided into six plumes so it should really be called a Twenty Four-plume moth. The scientific name meaning six fingered is probably more accurate.

Twenty-plume Moth -  Alucita hexadactyla

The Apple Leaf Skeletoniser does what it's name suggests, the caterpillar eats the leaf material and leaves the skelton of the leaf behind. I was a bit worried when I found a couple of these in the trap. The apple tree has been looking a bit the worse for wear recently but reading up on them, the preferred food source is the Crab Apple.

Apple Leaf Skeletoniser - Choreutis pariana

And another apple tree pest, the Codling Moth. I have also had a lot of the Light Brown Apple Moth in the trap. Still it makes a change from the Woolly Aphids that Sue attacks with soapy water and a scrubbing brush every year.

Codling Moth - Cydia pomonella

Plume Moths. I hadn't realised how many different types there were. I am having to pay a bit more attention to them now.

Common Plume Moth - Emmelina monodactyl

Beautiful Plume - Amblyptilia acanthadactyla

Three more from the Tortricidae family, the Bramble Shoot Moth, the Common Mable, and another Cydia, the Marbled Piercer.

Bramble Shoot Moth - Notocelia uddmanniana

Common Marble - Celypha lacunana

Marbled Piercer - Cydia splendana

It seems to me, from my brief foray into mothing, that identification techniques are completely different to those used for butterflies. For butterflies I look for colour and flight style, with moths it is the shape of the silhouette and the wing pattern. The silhouette gets me to the right part of the field guide and the pattern of markings on the wing usually gets me to the correct identification. Colour only seems to confuse.

But there are always exceptions. Rolled wings or wings tightly held against the body and the colour becomes more important.

Golden Argent - Argyresthia goedartella

I had always thought that there was only one ermine moth but now I find there is a whole group of Small Ermine. I would have called the one below the Orchard Ermine Yponomeuta padella but the field guide warns of problems with identification of individual moths within the group.

And I would have got it wrong. Confirmed as Spindle Ermine by Colin Pratt 16/10/2020.

Spindle Ermine - Yponomeuta cagnagella

Mint moths making the most of their time in the moth trap.

Mint Moth - Pyrausta aurata

My first Blastobasidae, or at least the first that I have gotten round to identifying, the Dingy Dowd.

Over confident here. Probably not a Dingy Dowd. I should have taken a side on view for confirmation.

Dingy Dowd - Blastobasis adustella ????

 

The Micro Moths Field Guide has also come in useful for identifying some old pictures.The shot below was taken a few years ago but with the faded wing markings I wasn't really sure. It went into my work in progress file, which is just one step short of - delete as its taking up too much time.

It's nice to be able to recover one and put a name to it.

Mother of Pearl - Pleuroptya ruralis

To finish I thought I would include a picture of a Yellow Pearl. Unfortunately it's not from the moth trap in the back garden. It was found whilst searching for Grayling on Windover Hill in 2014. It is apparently a rare moth for Sussex but at the time there was a small colony reported in the area.

Yellow Pearl - Mecyna flavis

I was disappointed to see that my field guide does not include many of the old English names for these moths. They can be confusing and many have multiple names from different parts of the country. The scientific names are less confusing, though difficult to remember and to spell,  but it seems to me that the old names somehow give these tiny moths more character and makes them more interesting. 

Fortunately the names can still be found via the internet.

More from the Moth Trap

As promised, a few more from the moth trap. 

Best find this week was this Toadflax Brocade. I spent hours trying to identify it but in the end gave up and put it on Twitter with the tag MothIDUK. The answer came back in fifteen minutes. Now I have a name and thus a picture to look at, I can see the pattern in the markings but I don't think I would have made the connection without help.

Toadflax Brocade - Calophasia lunula

Most common moth on the last session was the Marbled Beauty. As with the Marbled Green from the last blog the larval food plants are lichens. There is a lot of older housing stock in the area but I haven't noticed that much lichen growth on them. Will have to look around, there must be something attracting them to the area.

Like the Marbled Green they come in a variety of shades.

Marbled Beauty - Cryphia domestica

Marbled Beauty - Cryphia domestica

Another common moth in the trap and more often on the walls around the trap is the Lime-speck Pug. One of the easier ones to identify.

Lime-speck Pug - Eupithecia centaureata

And two more, the Maidens Blush and the Pebble Hook-tip that are not too challenging on the identification front.

Maiden's Blush - Cyclophora punctaria

Pebble Hook-tip - Drepana falcataria

The Nutmeg moth initially looked challenging but the white line at the end of the wing is the key to identification. The line shows a large and clear W on both wings. Other moths have this W marking but with the exception of the Dusky Brocade seem easy to eliminate.

Nutmeg - Discestra trifoli

The Orange Swift is my first from the Hepialidae family. There are over five hundred species worldwide but only five in the British Isles.

Orange Swift - Hepialus sylvina

I had a bit more of a problem with the next one. I couldn't really find anything that looked exactly like the moth in the photograph. Using a process of elimination I ended up with the Grey Pug. 

It's a Channel Islands Pug. Corrected by Colin Pratt 16/10/2020. I should perhaps have spotted this one. We have a lot of the larval food plant Tamarisk close to the house.

Channel Islands Pug - Eupithecia ultimaria

Another Rustic? Had one of these in the last blog. Two more now, all assessed independently and all three I came to the same conclusion - Rustic. There are a couple of other Rustic species and the aptly named Uncertain that it could be confused with and I really need to see these in the hand to sort out the differences.

Got it wrong again. It's a Vine's Rustic per Colin Pratt.

Vine's Rustic - Hoplodrina ambigua

Vine's Rustic - Hoplodrina ambigua

Also confused by the next one. Based on the wings I had decided on Square-spot Rustic but then of all things the eyes look wrong. They are not bulging as in most pictures that I look at. Closer examination would suggest that they probably are but the antenna are covering part of the eye.

Square-spot Rustic - Xestia xanthographa

Another Willow Beauty, there seems to be quite a few of these about. Markings are slightly different to the last one.

Willow Beauty - Peribatodes rhomboidaria

It is also worth remembering that a number of the moths can be seen as pests due to the damage they do in the larval stage. Often the clue is in the name and the Turnip moth is a good example. The larvae are known as Cutworms.  They attack the roots and lower stems of a huge range of plants and can be a particularly serious pest of root vegetables and cereals. Reading up on it, the Silver Y caterpillar is responsible for similar damage which I had not realised.

Turnip Moth - Agrotis segetum

And another pest species which is not even in my field Guide, the Box Tree Moth. This was accidentally introduced to the UK from south-east Asia. The larvae feed on various species of box (Buxus) and can do considerable damage. The first report of this moth was from Kent in 2007. This species is now well established in the South East and has been recorded widely over large parts of England including twice in my garden in the past week.

It also occurs in a melanic variation, the wings being purplish brown with a white spot near the centre of the forewing.

Pest or not, it's a nice looking moth.

 

Box Tree Moth - Cydalima perspectalis

I still have a few moths that I haven't got round to identifying yet. They are mostly Micro Moths and I think the micros will be even more challenging.

Anything mislabelled, please let me know.

From my Moth Trap

 

A few years ago I was at Strumpshaw Fen photographing the Swallowtail butterflies. When we arrive that morning they had just emptied their mothtrap and there was an Elephant Hawkmoth, Eyed Hawkmoth and a couple of Poplar Hawkmoths sitting on the fence waiting to be photographed, see my blog of  9th June 2016 for the pictures.

Although I had long considered getting involved with "mothing", the realisation that I would not see such impressive specimens in my urban Worthing garden was a little off putting. All I did, over the next few years, was to record the odd, mostly day flying moth, that I saw when on my travels. However, last week I took the plunge and and purchased a cheap trap to see what was about.

It is a low powered bulb and given the location I hadn't expected big catches. However, I have to say that after a slow start, it was better than I had expected. The slow start being just one moth on the first night that I tried it out. My fault really, it was a cold night and very windy. I new it would not be good for moths but I couldn't wait to play with my new toy.

Two subsequent evenings gave better returns with between twenty and thirty moths each night. I ended up with a total of thirty three new moths for my rather modest list and I still have half a dozen species to be identified. I'm hooked!

Plumed Fan-foot - Pechipogo plumigeralis

Plumed Fan-foot. This is the moth responsible for my new purchase. I found it in the garage and after taking a particularly poor picture of it, forgot all about it. A couple of days later I looked it up in my moth book, to be told that it that it was a rare immigrant from across the channel, first recorded in 1995 and with reports in the low tens in subsequent years. False News! or at least old news. Checking with the county recorder Colin Pratt I find that it is now classed as "locally commonplace along parts of the Sussex coast" Global warming has a lot to answer for.

Anyway, having tried out my new mothtrap, here are a few photographs of the moths I have seen. As with my occasional forays into hoverflies, bees and flies, all identifications come with a health warning. I am new to moths and I will get some wrong. Please let me know if you see anything obvious.

The two most common moths have been the Marbled Green and the Light Brown Apple Moth. The Marbled Green coming in many different shades.

Marbled Green - Cryphia muralis

Marbled Green - Cryphia muralis

Light Brown Apple Moth - Epiphyas positvittana

So lets have a look at some of the more interesting moths that have put in an appearance at the trap.

The next picture could be a Dark Dagger or a Grey Dagger. The moths of the two species cannot be told apart without examination of genitalia which is not really my thing. I caught two of them in the trap and they are probably both Dark Dagger as that appears to be more common in Sussex. However, the caterpillars of each species are different and I realised that about six weeks ago I took a picture of a Grey Dagger caterpillar in the garden.

Dark Dagger or Grey Dagger Moth?

Grey Dagger Caterpillar 23/6/2020

The Grey Dagger is reported to double brood in the south of England so could this moth be from the same batch as the caterpillar I found. I will never know, but at least having found the caterpillar I can put the Grey on my garden list.

The Brimstone Moth is one that I see a lot when I am out butterflying. It is easily disturbed during the day and being such a vivid colour always catches the eye when it flies. Lovely moth and much easier to photograph when it is straight out of the moth trap.

Brimstone - Opisthograptis luteolata

Brimstone - Opisthograptis luteolata

Common Wainscot, just a great moth to see. It looks more like a child's cuddly toy. Very similar to the Southern, Smokey and Mathew's Wainscots but this one looks good for the Common

Common Wainscot - Mythimna pallens

The next one really threw me. When I first looked at it there was no clear colour or pattern that I could see, just a dark mess. Over exposing the picture brought out the purple and olive colours and a bit of searching led me to the Coronet. It still looked nothing like the picture in the field guide but if you study it long enough the pattern begins to emerge. The picture below is still slightly over exposed to show the detail.

Coronet - Craniophora ligustri

I initially had the next one down as a Cream Wave but eventually convinced myself that it was a Riband Wave form remutata.

Ribband Wave - Idaea aversata

A heart stopping moment when the Dusky Thorn came out of the trap. My first Thorn, could I get a picture before it flew away. Could I get it into the house to give me more time. How many times had I read that it is always the best moth that escapes when you open the trap. No problem on that front but it is an awkward shape for the narrow depth of focus on a macro lens.

Dusky Thorn - Ennomos fuscantaria 

I took a lot of shots of this Garden Tiger but it kept its wings firmly closed all through its photo opportunity. In the end I released it into the bushes, only to see it, a few minutes later, fly back to the patio and sit showing it's rear wings. Perhaps it was a thank you for having released it.

Garden Tiger - Arctia caja

It took me a while to identify the Least Carpet as well. It seemed more butterfly than moth and I couldn't pick it out from the field guide. Not sure why, there is nothing else that looks like it.

Least Carpet - Idaea rusticata

I nearly missed the Pale Prominent. It was tucked down in the corner of the trap blending in nicely with the background. I had seen one before but this is the first time I have managed to get a photograph.

Pale Prominent - Pterostoma palpina

The next moth is a tough call. I studied the images of the Uncertain and the Rustic for a long time. In the end I settled for Rustic but I am still not one hundred percent convinced.

And I got it wrong. It is a Vine's Rustic. Corrected by Colin Pratt 16/10/2020.

Vine's Rustic - Hoplodrina ambigua

The next is a micro moth. Fortunately I had just ordered the Field Guide to Micro Moths. The specimen is faded but is clearly of the genus Udea and from the markings looks like Udea ferrugalis the Rusty-dot Pearl.

Rusty-dot Pearl - Udea ferrugalis

The next two or three are a bit easier to identify. The first is the Setaceous Hebrew Character. What a wonderful name.

Setaceous Hebrew Character - Xestia c-nigrum

and the next the Shuttle-shaped Dart.

Shuttle-shaped Dart - Agrotis puta 

The Silver Y, another of the common moths. Populations vary from year to year. It doesn't seem to be easily disturbed during the day but some years I seem to find them everywhere.

Silver Y - Autographa gamma

and my final moth for this blog the Willow Beauty

Willow Beauty - Peribatodes rhomboidaria

Probably all routine stuff to the dedicated mothing community but it is all new to me.

Although this started as a birding blog my interests have expanded over the years. Birding will always be the main theme but there seems little point in just churning out the same old thing year after year. Bees and Flies are interesting but identification is getting a little too technical for me. I am interested in looking at the wildlife not in dissecting it. Orchids were interesting but not enough to get me going back this year. There are still a few I would like to see in Scotland and the North of England but that will be on an as and when basis.

Moths I like. I have a feeling that this blog will be showing a lot more "from my moth trap" pages.