Slight improvement

Well the respite from really cold and wintry weather has seen a rise in the number of moths around with a few being added to the garden year list including Early Moth, Early Grey and Chestnut.

Early Moth




Early Grey



The most notable sighting though was of a significant flush of emergence of Dotted Border and Early Moth, with the blackthorn bushes by the house literally crawling with them two evenings ago.



This was followed a night later by a flush of dozens of Agonopterix heracliana on the garden hedge, was fascinating to see so many at once.

Slim pickings plus macro early stages

The weather, and the fact it is still only early February, conspires to restrict what adult moth activity there might be and as a result, records to the garden trap are few and far between.

Daytime early stage searches have been pretty successful as far as micros go, as per my latest post on my sister blog:  http://kentmicromoths.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/early-stages-carcina-quercana_7.html

But I also managed to find this Brimstone Moth larva by torchlight (I was actually searching blackthorn for female Early Moth, to no avail as yet this year).





The only other macro ('honorary' status at least) early stage find of note has been more larvae, galls and emergence holes of Raspberry Clearwing.

Dave