Saturday, 27 July 2019

Heat Wave Week- Moth Mania

It's been an extremely busy and hot week. Temperatures on Wednesday were low 30 degrees and it got up to 37 degrees locally on Thursday. My brother Steve is still away so I had to quote work (including a Merton Council tendor for Wimbledon Park) on three days and most of the rest of the week was paper work.

In between I was trying to keep up with the moth trap and due to the temperatures was concerned about the well being of the moths so was trying to get them released as early as possible, so in the rush I hope I didn't miss any migrants. Jacob was also taking a keen interest in all the moths attracted to the bugry but still hasn't quite mastered delicate handling of some of them!

So in all up to 70 moth species on several days and a few Beddington rarities (still need to check status of some of them- might be a couple of firsts for the farmlands).  Here's a few highlights and ids. 

Pheonix
Dark Spectacle (above ) and Dark Spectacle (below left) and Spectacle (right)


Dewick's Plusia- our local speciality 
Gold Spot 
Pebble Prominent 
Rosy-striped Knot Horn 
Dusky Thorn (above), August Thorn (below) 

Nutmeg
Currant Pug 
Plain Pug (above and below) 

 A Common Rustic variant (cheers Billy for confirming ids) 
Oak Processionary have reappeared . Also Jersey Tigers appeared about a week ago.
Little Emerald

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