Good night at Bontgoch

In sharp contrast to last weekend there were moth a'plenty at Bontgoch last night. 42 spp of macros including my first Small Elephant-hawk for some years and fresh specimens of Marbled Coronet and Treble bar.

Rustic Shoulder-knot

A rather quiet night down by the coast produced only 12 macro species. Good to see the Rustic Shoulder-knot, nationally common but scarce in Ceredigion. Others included Spectacle, Treble Lines, Shuttle-shaped Dart, Flame Shoulder, Common Pug and lots of Brown Silver-line.
Tony & Ina

A change from Hebrew Characters

Having had several nights more or less confined to Hebrew Characters, nice to have something else in the trap this morning. There was also the first Poplar Hawk of the year

The Larger Moths of Ceredigion

I have updated this document to include all records received up to end of 2018. To access it you need to go to the "Documents" page on this Blog and follow the instructions there. This is a very large document so I suggest that you download it to make any future reference to it more straightforward and quicker.

Please let me know if you have any problems accessing the document.

Tony

Ashworth's Rustic Hunt

Four of us set off up Foel Fawr this afternoon in search of Ashworth's Rustic larvae.  Despite the sun being out for a while we did not manage to find any this time but there are a couple of weeks left to continue the search.
We did however see some moths on the wing, most of which were too far away to see properly.
The tally; 2 Emperor Moths adult (m) and one early instar larva, 2 Brown Silver-line (possibly more disappearing into the distance), 3 psyche casta (only one examined was larval), 2 Neofaculta ericetella and some Oak Eggar cocoons. The latter may have been parasitized as the hole is small and very clean around the edges, not looking broken, but we are not experts at this sort of thing.
Also added some more small larvae to the 'nursery'.

Emperor Moth larva

Neofaculta ericetella

Eggar cocoons

Psyche casta

Capua vulgana

Today proved warmer than promised by the weather people, so a stroll up Cwm Cletwr was called for.
Plenty of things flying, mostly flies, a few wasps, bees and butterflies.
I have come home with some moth larvae to look after for a while mostly from Bilberry - time will tell what they are so long as the parasites have not got at them first.
Three species of micro; Adela reaumurella, Cydia ulicetana and the main reason for this post, Capua vulgana, found among the Bilberry which is one of it's food plants.  At 7-9mm it is one of the smaller 'flat' Torts and as we have only 22 records for the county I am sure we should be finding more.  The one from today is a male, (top photo) the female (bottom photo) does not have a costal fold and is unicolorous.
So one to look out for now.
Ina

Glaucous Shears etc

I also had lots of Brindled pugs and a few Oak-tree pugs in my UV trap at Bontgoch on Tuesday night. Amongst the 26 species were 12 Great Prominents, Red and Dark Swordgrass, Streamer and a Glaucous Shears (a first for me).