Blair's Mocha

 

The moth trap is still proving to be an interesting distraction in these times of covid-19. With a small urban garden, close to the sea and a couple of miles from the nearest countryside, I hadn't really expected to see too much in the way of numbers and variety in the trap. I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised. True, the numbers are not huge, probably a maximum of forty to fifty a night, but as a beginner the challenge of identification has been enough to keep me occupied for a good few hours each time the trap is run.

The following is just a selection of some of the moths caught. There is nothing special about them, I just feel the need to keep an occasional record on the blog. Google permitting I will be able to return to and read them again in future years. 

My first moth is a Blair's Mocha. Previously an occasional migrant species but now resident on the south coast. Just a fascinating shape particularly with the appearance of a streamlined head. One of the benefits of global warming and of living on the south coast is that we get to see these species before the rest of the country.

Blair's Mocha - Cyclophora albipunctata

The picture was taken in the lid of the sample pot as I have found these Geometridae difficult to photograph. Sure enough, when I tried to transfer it to a better background it took the opportunity to escape. I may not be an expert on handling moths but one thing I learnt from birding is get your record shot first then worry about getting a good picture.

The next moth, a Blood Vein, required me to use a different set of skills, those of butterflying and in particular the pursuit of the Pearl-bordered species. I disturbed this one whilst walking along the North Wall at Pagham and watched as it disappeared into the distance. There then followed a half hour search and pursuit, during which it regularly disappeared form sight and often settled in spots where it couldn't be photographed, but eventually I got the picture.

Blood-vein - Timandra comae

One from the trap, a Campion. Nice looking moth and easy to identify as it is reasonably fresh and still shows the purplish marbling on the wings. The picture below that is of the very similar looking Lychnis. When the Campion is older and faded they are harder to tell apart. You are then comparing the width of the wing, the kidney and eye shapes on the Campion being more distorted, and the shape of the outer white cross line on the forewing. More subjective and not easy unless you have the two side by side.

Campion - Hadena rivularis

Lychnis - Hadena bicruris

And now for something completely different, a Chinese Character. This species holds its wings erect when at rest and resembles bird droppings. The camouflage seems to work with birds reported to often ignore it when feeding. At only 10-13mm long and looking like something you don't want to put your hand on this moth is easily overlooked.

Chinese Character - Cilix glaucata

 There are a number of Noctuid moths called ‘Wainscots’. The name refers to their colour and pattern rather than suggesting closer family links. They are generally off-white with veins giving the appearance of longitudinal whitish stripes all the way down the forewing. Below are two of these, the Common and the L-album.

Common Wainscot - Mythimna pallens

L-album Wainscot - Mythimna l-album

Most moths rest with their wings flat or curled up close to their bodies. There are, however, a few examples of moths that will rest with their wings held aloft like a butterfly. Below is a Cypress Carpet showing this behaviour, with the picture after that the same moth with its wings flat.

Cypress Carpet - Thera cupressata

Cypress Carpet - Thera cupressata

And below a Latticed Heath holding a similar position. This moth was in the kitchen for most of the day and seemed to hold the vertical wing position for all of that time.

Latticed Heath - Chiasmia clathrata clathrata

A Delicate, not rare but the first one I have seen and below that a Pale Mottled Willow. The latter being easy to identify from the white spots around the kidney mark.

Delicate - Mythimna vitelina

Pale Mottled Willow - Paradrina clavipalpis

Another Geometridae, the Light Emerald. It is said to be common but I have only ever seen one of them, this on a leaf at the side of the trap. I nearly missed it but I have now got into the habit of searching all the vegetation close to the trap.

Light Emerald - Campaea margaritata

The Orange Swift is part of the Hepialidae family. These are primitive moths that have no working proboscis or mouth parts, so only live about a week. There are around 500 species worldwide with just five occurring in the British Isles.

Orange Swift - Hepialus sylvina

Underwings have been plentiful in the trap of late. They are mostly varieties of the Yellow underwings and strangely most are in very poor shape. Rather than show those, here are two in better condition, a Copper Underwing which unfortunately I could not get to open its wings and a Red Underwing which was more obliging but only when sitting on the Red Blinds. I think the identification as Copper Underwing rather than Svensson's Copper Underwing is correct but I can't be sure hence the Amphipyra agg designation.

Copper Underwing agg - Amphipyra agg 

Red Underwing - Catocala nupta

I haven't yet found a reliable method of getting the moths to display the underwing. Perhaps its pure luck......

and below a Setaceous Hebrew Character included because it was showing some of the underwing. It makes such a difference to the pictures.

Setaceous Hebrew Character - Xestia c-nigrum

I have included a picture of the Rush Veneer as a representative of the Micro Moths although at 12-15mm it is actually bigger than many of the Macros.

Rush Veneer - Nomophila noctuella

I include the next two pictures because the use of camouflage by moths is fascinating. I understand that thousands of years of natural selection will have developed wing colours and patterns that match their natural habitat. However, there seems to be more at play here. 

I placed the Treble-bar below on a stone wall where it stayed for about twenty seconds before relocating to an adjacent wooden panel. It then proceeded to move around in what appeared to be an attempt to line up its wing markings with the woodgrain. Unfortunately in my attempts to get a picture I flushed it so never got to see the final result.

Treble-bar - Aplocera plagiataplagiata

The Willow Beauty was another example. I placed it on a piece of plain wall and it quickly relocated to this textured area.The match is so good it looks as though the moths wings are transparent. Does this show a level of self-awareness, of the moth knowing what it looks like, or is it just coincidence. I am not sure but it is something I will be looking for in the future.

Willow Beauty - Peribatodes rhomboidaria

So much more to see and wonder at. Why didn't I start looking at moths years ago?

Dotterel

I haven't been spending much time birding lately, but Tuesday's news of three Dotterel, on the downs just south of Ditchling Beacon, soon had my attention. I have seen them before but never in Sussex and my only picture is a distant, barely recognisable shot.

There are a number of traditional stopping off points along the South Downs, that are regularly used by the Dotterel on their spring and autumn migrations. Reports are less and less frequent as the years go by but opportunities to see them still exist.  

Dotterel

I have searched the Ditchling Beacon and Balsdean areas in previous years but with no luck. Unless you spot the bird flying in, they can be very difficult to locate. They have good camouflage and tend to hunker down in dips and gullies and stay still for long periods. It can seem a thankless task, searching for something that is difficult to see, when you know that there is a near certainty that it is not even there. However, someone found these three and they deserve my thanks for putting the report out.

It was a bit different when I went off in search of my first Sussex sighting on the Wednesday. Good directions made the area easy to find and a small group of observers already onto the birds made the exact location clear. In many ways it was a little disappointing to find such a difficult bird with no real effort on my part.

However, I wanted a picture and I wasn't going to miss the opportunity. I spent about an hour just getting brief glimpses of a couple of the birds roosting in amongst the chalk and stubble. Eventually they did move and I got my picture opportunities. Distant but much better than anything I have had in the past.

Dotterel

Dotterel

There were good numbers of Wheatears foraging along the fence lines as I walked back to the car but unfortunately there were no Whinchats visible.

Wheatear

And a few pictures from earlier in the summer, Corn Bunting, House Martin, and Spotted Flycatchers. 

Corn Bunting

House Martin

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

 

Nice to see the Dotterel and as I said above, the pictures are better than anything I had before, but looking at them again they are not really good enough. The challenge of getting a good picture is still there.

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.