Feb and Fifty

Just been getting MapMate up to date and now realise that I have reached over 50 species already this year and it is still February, albeit the last day of February. It took until 25th March to get there last year.

The success, like last year, is simply down to extensive daytime searching for early stages, predominantly of micros.

The species to push the list to 50 this year was the not-so-spectacular mine of Bucculatrix nigricomella in my front garden.






 The new for garden Red Chestnut from my most recent post, was species #51 for 2014, so hopefully onwards and upwards.

Code Red: February yields a garden newbie

Nice to get a new one for the garden so early in the season.

This beautiful Red Chestnut was flying around the security light yesterday.

Not-so Dotted Border

... although it's hardly her fault, given the vestigial nature of her wings, there's no room for the dots seen on the males.

Was very pleased to find her scuttling down an Ash tree trunk; there were males on nearby bushes too.