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.