Falkland Palace, 23/11/2014

Trap left overnight and examined in the morning turned up some nice winter specialities - all therefore new to the Palace and to the hectad, which I assume hasn't been done in November before

The Count
December Moth (1)
Scarce Umber (1)
Mottled Umber (1)
Winter Moth (6)
Epirrita sp. (1)

Hill of Beath, 27th October

Trap out between about 7 and 11, and a sugared post. Couple of craneflies, several flies that looked like Scathophagia stercoraria, inclding a pair in cop.

No moths.

Falkland Palace, 10th October 2014, Hill of Beath 11th

Ran the trap between 19:40 and 21:40, which at times seemed a long shift. There were numerous 'November Moth Types' around the trap and perched in various trees, and besides that a Red-green Carpet settled on the cloth. At half past nine I decided to crack open the trap just to see if I was missing things, and in the middle of the trap, all on its own, was the Black Rustic below. It was the only moth in the trap. I decided to call it a night. In November I will go the whole hog and leave the trap overnight. There just isn't enough action to justify standing around. What there is, though, is a new record for the gardens and for the hectad NO20 - a gap nicely plugged as the species is recorded in almost all other hectads in the county (full sized ones, not bits of coast!)

'November' moth

Black Rustic

Black Rustic

The following night in Hill of Beath I also managed one moth - a Brick

Cullaloe 20/09/2014

With two MVs and the heath trap we still faced an uphill struggle against falling temperatures. A few species were added to the year list though. The brambles above the spillway saw more activity than the traps maybe with Pink-barred Sallows in abundance and also a couple of Red-line Quakers.

Pick of the bunch for me in terms of beauty if not scarcity was Canary-shouldered Thorn

The list
(numbers rough guide, to be corrected)
Canary-shouldered Thorn (2)
Pink-barred Sallow (25)
Sallow (2)
Red-line Quaker (3)
Autumnal Rustic (4)
Snout (1)
Pine Carpet (1)
July High-flyer (1)
November Moth 'type' (1)
Small Square-spot (1)
Chestnut (2)

micros:
Acleris emargana - Notch-wing Tortrix (3)

The pics

There was also a Banded Sexton  Beetle, Nicrophorus investigator, one of the red-antenna'd Nicrophorus. Lots of passengers too, but I'll let them pass on ID this time around.

Falkland Palace, 13/09/2014

Unable to get the electricity on, I resorted to roaming the garden with head-torch and net. The lovely purple Asters produced two Angle Shades

Cullaloe - 04/09/2014

A quickie from 9 until 10 with the trap under the pines. Ruby Rustic time of year clearly with my second in two days - this one netted from the path on the slope dowmn from the hide. Three other moths were caught/trapped - this being a placeholder for the final result

Hill of Beath 03/09/2014

Quietish night though mild and overcast. My first carrion beetle in the trap, which is one with orange antennae (ok, offtopic for moths ... )

The list
LYU (1)
Garden Carpet (2)
Rosy Rustic (1)

The pics:

Cullaloe - 30-31/08/2014

A cool night, and only a small catch. One of the Small Phoenix caught was a very small example. July Highflyers pushing the envelope at the end of August!

Count
Sallow - 2
July Highflyer - 3
Small Phoenix - 2
Six-striped Rustic - 1

The following day a pristine Silver Y was swept from the flower meadow area while attempting to net a hoverfly.

Hill of Beath, 26-08-2014

Trap out all night on a cold clear night. Catch? Three caddis flies.The light was off in the morning so I'm not sure how long it was on. I suspect the cold air has a bad impact on battery life

Dumbarnie Links 21/08/2014

Open skies and a starry night with not much to show in terms of moths. We ran the heath trap from about 21:30 until about 23:00, while also doing some walking around and some sugaring on a number of posts around the reserve. 6 Hedge Rustics came to light - a species which has been recorded here once before; also in August.

There was a second species which featured heavily - a Square-spot Rustic 'type', which I need to check now I'm back from a weekend away. Three of these came to sugar while another two came to the light. Once on the sugar mix they were loth to move and one sample taken from there was very easily potted. (There's a S-S Rustic here which looks almost identical, and flight time and habitat are both good)

There was also a Common Rustic which came to the light. No micros were seen of any kind, and no Geometrids, although we did pack up at 11, so you never know what might have come. There wasn't visible much sign in the head-torches that we were missing anything though.

Aside from lepidoptera the light brought in a cranefy which had been previously recorded on te reserve, while the sugar brought in earwigs, harvestmen, a tiny ground beetle, a couple of flies and a lacewing - the only species which was an addition to the reserve list.

Cullaloe 15/08/2014

A decent night at Cullaloe before the howling winds came. Temperature started at 12.5 and dropped to only 11 in the morning. The only new species recorded was Sallow, of which there were 4. Three were fully-patterned and one was pale - so the two images in the field guide.

Species list

Common Wave (1)

Dark Marbled Carpet (2)

Dun-bar (1)

Small Phoenix (1)

July Highflyer (13)

Common Rustic (1)

Lesser Yellow Underwing (4)

Large Yellow Underwing (1)

Shaded Broad-bar (2)

Sallow (4)

Cullaloe 08/08/2014

Left the moth trap out overnight but slept in the following morning. Not sure quite where it went wrong but only 5 moths were recorded. Maybe they all escaped before I arrived, but inside the trap were only two moths!

Small Phoenix

Chevron

Dark Marbled Carpet

Cullaloe 02/08/2014

After a day of rain, and going into a foggy evening I dropped off thetrap at Cullaloe with high hopes. Two new species for the reserve and a reasonable collection of various moths. New for the reserve were Pebble Priminent and Early Thorn - both very nice. From Falkland on Friday and here there seems to be a second gen of Small Phoenix which had completely died off after an early summer/late spring showing.

Pebble Prominent

Early Thorn

Chevron

Small Phoenix

Falkland Palace, 01/08/2014

"Creatures of the Night" annual public moth trapping at falkland saw three MV traps going, but the temperature dropped sharply as the sun went and things were strangely quiet. The trap in the normal place looked like it would have done well. That is, it might have done well if it hadn't drawn in a swarm of wasps from a nearby nest! It had to be relocated, so it probably didn't do as well as it might have. Only about 20 species had been recorded by the time I left at 11:45'ish, but the number went up to 34 by the morning, with 350 individual moths noted, many of which were, naturally, Large Yellow Underwings. There were some nice species that I missed which would have been new to me, not least Gold Spangle.

New for the palace list: 
Macros: Slender Brindle, Haworth’s Minor, Gold Spangle, Grey Chi
Micros: Mother of Pearl, Brown China Mark, Bird Cherry Ermine, Crambus perlella, Crambus Lathoniellus 


Macros
Twin-spotted Carpet
Slender Brindle
LYU
LBBYU
6-striped Rustic
Common Carpet
Common Rustic
July Highflyer
Smoky Wainscots
Common Wainscot
Dark Arches
Dotted Clay
Dun-bar
True-lover’s Knot
Clay
Broad-bordered YU
Lesser YU
Rosy Rustic
Haworth’s Minor
Gold Spangle
Burnished Brass
Antler
Grey Chi
Small Phoenix
Riband Wave
Barred Straw
Garden Carpet

Micros
Mother of Pearl
Brown China Mark
Bird Cherry Ermine
Agriphila tristella
Crambus perlella
Blastobasis Adustella
Crambus Lathoniellus

Pictures

Burnished Brass

Brown China-mark

Slender Brindle

Bird Cherry Ermine

Six-striped Rustic

Cullaloe 26/07/2014

Rainy night for the public moth night at Cullaloe, but we managed to tough it out between 21:00 and midnight with two MVs and a heath trap and catch a decent range of species, with 13 additions to the year list and a good few species additions to the reserve list. The order sadly is odd (extract from iRecord sorted by preferred name) and I haven't adjusted it by code.

The list
Light Arches (new for reserve)
Dark Arches
Double Lobed (new for reserve and hectad NT18)
Common Wave
Light Emerald
Antler Moth (new for reserve)
Dun-bar (new for reserve)
Purple Clay (new for reserve)
Small Square-spot (new for reserve)
Phoenix
Orange Swift (new for reserve)
July Highflyer
Snout
Small Fan-footed Wave
Common Rustic
Shoulder-striped Wainscot
Smoky Wainscot
Common Wainscot
Lesser Yellow Underwing
Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
Large Yellow Underwing
Middle-barred Minor
Marbled Minor agg. (new for reserve)
Brimstone Moth
Lesser Swallow Prominent
Swallow Prominent (new for reserve)
Gold Spot (new for reserve)
Lempke's Gold Spot (new for reserve)
Shaded Broad-bar
Dotted Clay
Six-striped Rustic (new for reserve)
Double-square Spot
Mother of Pearl

The pictures

Orange Swift

Light Arches

Lempke's Gold Spot

Dun Bar (light bar from head torch/pot!)

Swallow prominent

Purple Clay

Cullaloe 23/07/2014

Another good night with fog although numbers were down this time - fortunately, as it allowed me to go back to bed for another hour's sleep! Spent about half an hour walking the paths and netting flying objects last night with my daughter - more than we could catch by far with one net and one headtorch between us. We did manage to snag a Phoenix this way, which was a good catch. I also peeked under the forewing of a Smoky Wainscot to make sure it checked out - everything was kosher under there. Beautiful Carpet, which I think should check out, is a new NT18 species I think. Burnished Brass was a cracking looking moth, but it's appeal is hard to convey with a photo as it depends on the right incident light to show its shiny bits.

The list
Large Emerald (1)
Peppered (1)
Lesser Swallow Prominent (1)
Dark Arches (6)
LYU (13)
Poplar Hawk-moth (1)
Small Fan-footed Wave (3)
Coulded Border (3)
Silver-ground Carpet (1)
Shaded Broad-bar (5)
Smoky Wainscot (4)
Flame Carpet (1)
Snout (2)
Beautiful Carpet (1)
Common White Wave (1)
Common Rustic agg. (1)
Dark Marbled Carpet (1)
Mother of Pearl (3)
Mottled Beauty (1)
Twin-spot Carpet (2)
Golden-rod Pug (1)

The new

Burnished Brass

Phoenix

Beautiful Carpet

The known

Dark Marbled Carpet

Poplar H-M

Large emerald

Peppered

Lesser Swallow Prominent (thx DD)

Dark Arches

Twin-spot Carpet

Golden-rod Pug

One of them big micros ... Mother of Pearl

Apotomis betuletana