Thursday 20 October 2016

Dalgety Bay, 18/10/16, Pale November Moth, Epirrita christyi

Overnight heath trap, garden

Common Marbled Carpet (2)
Pale November moth (2m)
One yellow fly, to be determined



Thursday 6 October 2016

Dalgety Bay, 05/10/2016 - Merveille du Jour

A nice, if small, collection overnight in the garden heath trap with the star of the show undoubtedly being the lovely Merveille du Jour - my first.

Satellite (1)
Merveille du Jour (1)
Chestnut (1)
Green Brindled Crescent (1)
Common Marbled Carpet (1)
Spruce Carpet (1)

Satellite

Merveille du Jour

Monday 25 July 2016

Cullaloe, 23/07/2016

A good selection of species for only a couple of hours between 10 and midnight, with a small handful of new ones adding to the reserve moth list - my favourites being Barred Yellow and Bramble Shoot Moth. Ghost Moth was also a nice new one, but one I've seen lots of elsewhere

List
to follow

Pics











Wednesday 20 July 2016

Hill of Beath, 10/07/2016

Overnight heath trap produced a fair number of moths but with little diversity. There were a couple of micros but I didn't attempt to stop them escaping. They didn't look particularly enticing.

Dark Arches - 5
LYU - 7
Marbled Beauty - 3
Dusky Wainscot - 1





Wednesday 22 June 2016

Cullaloe, 18/06/2016

One MV trap under the pines and a lot of headtorch wandering. A nice evening with three new moth species for the reserve - one macro and 2 micros

Macros
Bordered White - 1 (new)
Silver-ground Carpet - 100
Common White Wave - 10
Clouded Magpie - 10
Green Carpet - 5
Beautiful Golden Y - 5
Brimstone - 2
Small Dotted Buff - 2
Scalloped Hazel - 2
Common Marbled Carpet - 2
Flame Carpet - 2
Coxcomb Prominent - 1
Common Swift - 1
Small Phoenix - 1
Rivulet - 1


Micros
Opsibotys fuscalis
Tinea semifulvella (new)
Elachypta argentella (new)
White-shouldered house Moth - 1
Ancylis badiana - 1
Diamond-backed Moth - 1 

Other by-catch
Denticollis linearis (A click beetle)
Cantharis cryptica (A soldier beetle)
Notonecta glauca (Common Backswimmer)
Beris chalybata (Murky Legionnaire - a soldierfly)

Silver-ground Carpet

Green Carpet

Rivulet
    
Beautiful Golden Y

Common White Wave

BGY

Small Dotted Buff

Tinea semifulvella
   
Common Swift

Small Phoenix

Coxcomb Prominent

Scalloped Hazel

Wednesday 25 May 2016

Mossmorran Brassy Twist, 25-05-2016

Lovely name they've given this little guy - AKA Eulia ministrana. This one was found in a birch tree at Mossmorran this morning


Small Phoenix - Castle Brae

The office wall species grows by one more. Another nice looking micro escaped while trying to capture it, sadly.


Yellow-ringed Carpet, Mull

While creeping down a gulley to look at bryophytes on a rock seepage (very glamorous), I disturbed a moth from the gulley wall. As luck would have it I had a bag with a moth net and a sweep net in it and was able to catch said moth for a closer look. Turns out it was a Yellow-ringed Carpet - a pretty scarce moth which is an upland and western (mostly) species with very few records post-2000. I always enjoy putting a dot on a map but some dots are more enjoyable than others


Monday 23 May 2016

Peppered Moth, Dunfermline

The 16th species I have found on my office wall. Usually they re above the uplighters that shine on the wall but this one was in a random spot, maybe pulled there by the small garden. Who knows. Lovely moths, anyway


Monday 25 April 2016

Twenty-plume and White-spot, 24-04-2016

A surprise Twenty-plume Moth emerged from under a wheelie bin in my garden yesterday - a nice surprise. I guess somebody has some honeysuckle in their garden nearby


Earlier in the day this Eriocrania unimaculella was knocked out of a conifer at Mossmorran. Interestingly this is exactly the prescribed method of finding the species and the exact right timing as described in the Micros book.


Wednesday 20 April 2016

Cullaloe LNR, 19/04/2016 - Water Carpet and a false start

After watching the temperature dial drop as the moon shone in a clear sky disaster struck as it turned out the generator had stopped (lack of petrol) and the light gone out. Not much of a haul

Water Carpet - 1 (!) Chocolate Form
Micro - unnamed - 1

Chocolate Form

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Cullaloe LNR, 22/03/2016

An overnight heath trap in the birches and a brief head torch session at the one Salix with workable catkins produces two new species for the reserve and a Lepidoptera total now finally at 200! the Yellow Horned was also new for NT18, just sneaking in time for the atlas at its last chance

Yellow Horned - 1
Chestnut - 1
Common Quaker - 1

Mottled Grey - 2 (on Salix)
Mystery species (but not new, I think...)

Agonopterix ocellana - 1

Chestnut

Common Quaker

Mottled Grey

Yellow Horned

Agonopterix ocellana

and the one I can't put a name to yet...

I know those spots mean something...

Monday 14 March 2016

2016 - kickoff

So a round of individual moths started the season off in fine style

Herald from Dumbarnie Links


Dotted Border from Hill of Beath


Pale Brindled Beauty, also from Hill of Beath