Wednesday, 7 October 2026

Rain and a bit of moth mig

I was planning on sneaking in a bit of birding today in light of a good spell of scarce bird migrants at Portland and the South Coast in the last couple of days but it's raining today so decided to get on with work.

However ahead of the rain there was a nice little influx of moth migrants with the year's first Porter's Rustic and Radford's Flame Shoulder with 4 Scarce Bordered Straw, 4 Silver-Y, 2 Blair's Mocha, 2 Vestal, 10 White-points (an increase), 4 Rush Veener, 3 Rusty-dots, Small Mottled Willow and 2 Clancy's Rustic. 28 species in total of approx 150 individual moths with Beaded Chestnut and Lunar Underwing (almost equal numbers) making up the bulk of the catch. Crambus pascuella was unseasonal and a Setaceous Hebrew Character was the first in a while. There was also a Pale-lemon Sallow but I think it was the same one as the night before. 

Porter's Rustic- only the third record here (above and below)

Radford's Flmae Shoulder- surprisingly the first for the year. In my first autumn here, 2024. there were daily autumn records with double figures some days. 

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