Wales trip: Part I

In late August the family trip this year was to the most beautiful cottage in the Black Mountains - Cefn y Waun. This was the view:



The moth trap came along and plenty of miner searches were conducted too (more on which in Part II: Welsh miners).

Some of the macros to the trap included:

Grey Chi (Antitype chi)


Bordered Beauty (Epione repandaria)


Flame Carpet (Xanthorhoe designata)


Chevron (Eulithis testata)


Centre-barred Sallow (Atethmia centrago)


Spruce Carpet (Thera britannica)

Blogging again - from the Raspberry patch

Hopefully back for a while now, work has been manic and reduced any free time and as such no time to blog.

To start the catching up, a few images from the thriving Raspberry Clearwing colony that is just yards from my garden. This female was successfully reared from a larva plus also managed to assemble a male to her later on.

2014: year of the abs?

Already this season I have encountered several aberrations or forms of otherwise fairly common species at greater frequency than before; perhaps just coincidence but gets you thinking...

Treble Lines ab. obscura



Tawny-barred Angle f. nigrofulvata



Clouded-bordered Brindle ab. combusta

Finding my Marbles

A trip to Gloucestershire and Worcestershire over the Bank Holiday allowed me to track down the feeding signs of the Mistletoe Marble (Celypha woodiana) in a very old orchard (just inside VC33).

Spring catch-up part I

What with the Easter hols and family duties the blog has suffered but thankfully the mothing has been pretty good, particularly with regards early stage finds too.  However, just wanted to get blog updated with trap visitors...

Scorched Carpet


Acleris literana


Brindled Beauty


Waved Umber

Pennants galore

Four Streamer to the garden trap in the past two nights, always nice to see this spring moth.

Early call to the Bar

The Purple Bar to be precise.  Another very early record in the garden last night, 31.iii.2014, again far and away my earliest ever record.