Dost thou love hawking?

Only one moth to the garden trap last night, actually clinging to the sheet, but one that marked the start of the Hawks for me, surely decent May weather must be round the corner?

A pleasant surprise

Still not much doing in the traps but did get this one which was new for me: Elachista albifrontella




Also netted this while out and about this afternoon - Latticed Heath.


Dave

Garden catch-up

Finally the deluge eased (for a while) to allow a couple of nights trapping in the garden.  Managed to add a few new for years before April was out:


Herald - always a pleasure


Scorched Carpet


Brimstone


V-Pug


Fern

A close frond of mine: Part II

In a sequel to an earlier post: http://eastkentgardenmoths.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/close-frond-of-mine.html
the Psychoides verhuella mines on Hartstongue duly emerged over the weekend - not the most striking of moths but success nonetheless.




And the trapping in the garden has been looking up over the past few days, more on that later.

Dave

Adventives are real moths too...discuss

In an update to my preceding post, I have now successfully reared one of the Prays oleae larvae found in mines at Wentworth Garden Centre, South Yorkshire through to adulthood.



P. oleae - pupa and cocoon



P. oleae - reared ex mine on Olive, VC63, emerged 27.iv.2012

Struck gold at the mine....

A brand new species for me this week, albeit very far from Kent.

Found lots of mines of the adventive, olive-feeding species Prays oleae at a garden centre in South Yorkshire.  Which is very fitting as this species was first reported in the UK from a garden centre in Surrey in 2009: garden centres are of course where it is easiest to find olive trees in the UK!





Very pleased to add this to the list.

Dave

Same old, same old, almost...

The garden trap is definitely seeing a lull at the moment with just relatively low numbers of the usual suspects - Early Grey and Small Quaker most numerous, another couple of Eudonia angustea, whilst Clouded Drabs seem to have dried up.

Had a trip yesterday afternoon, to Fowlmead Country Park, which achieved the main purpose of bagging Orange Underwing for the year list, as two were seen at the first mature birch clump within minutes of arrival (they were the only two in an hour long foray).

Had good success with early stage micros too, including Limnaecia phragmitella larvae and plenty of Ectoedemia heringella mines - details and pics on my Kent Micro Moths blog:

http://kentmicromoths.blogspot.co.uk/

Dave