Wednesday 27 April 2022

Brindled and other beauties

 Just noted Liz's post: I had 21 Brindled Beauties last night, but 41 on the 21st April, so definitely a good year here (Llangeitho): this with my home-made approx. 4 watt LED light.

Others that appealed to me from last night's catch included singles of:

Least Black Arches

Square Spot

May Highflyer

V-pug

Red Twin-spot Carpet (I believe)

75 moths of 23 species in all.

Brindled Beauties

Is it a Brindled year?  I caught 35 at Rhos Pil Bach with only an 18w synergetic on 24th, a cold clear night! 


And a Frosted Green showing off this season's fur.

Friday 22 April 2022

Yesterday's moths

 We ran a Robinson trap at Ynys-hir on Wednesday night and despite the very cold wind yesterday morning we recorded 23 species (only 2 of them micros). New to us this year were Brimstone Moth,  Red Sword-grass, Oak-tree Pug, plus those below.

Tony & Ina

Frosted Green

Purple Thorn

Scalloped Hazel

White-pinion Spotted

Small Phoenix

Clouded Silver

Golden-rod Pug


Monday 18 April 2022

Rescue mission in the Rheidol Valley

Good numbers of Great Prominent (11) and Engrailed (12) came to light in woodland in the Rheidol Valley on Friday night. Singles of Frosted Green, Early and Purple Thorn, Water Carpet, Grey Birch, Brown Silver Lines, Shoulder Stripe and Least Black Arches, and two Lunar Marbled Brown. And perhaps a faded Early Tooth-striped, released from a spider's web, with an ant attached to its leg. Only micros were Esperia sulpherella.

Engrailed

Least Black Arches

Grey Birch

Frosted Green

Possibly Early Tooth-striped, now ant-less


Sunday 17 April 2022

Pale Prominent

 A moonlit night revealed only 12 macro species, but included our first Pale Prominent and Lunar Marbled Brown for this year.

Carolyn & Evan



Saturday 16 April 2022

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

 A Hummingbird Hawkmoth visiting the Pulmonaria in my garden yesterday...

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

Thursday 14 April 2022

Ynys-hir Spring moths

 What we thought would be a good night produced only 53 moths of 14 macro species (not a micro in sight). New for us this year were: Lunar Marbled Brown (11), Brindled Beauty (4), Great Prominent (3), Pebble Prominent, Spruce Carpet, Lobster Moth, Brown Silver-line. Although the more common Spring species, Common Quaker, Small Quaker and Clouded Drab, were still present, their numbers were greatly reduced since our last visit 3 weeks ago.

Tony & Ina

Lobster Moth

Brown Silver-line

Great Prominent

Brindled Beauty

Pebble Prominent

Spruce Carpet

Lunar Marbled Brown

Lunar Marbled Brown


Monday 11 April 2022

Peter Walters Davies

 

You will be greatly saddened to learn of the death of our very first County Moth Recorder for Ceredigion, Peter Walters Davies.  He was instrumental in calling a meeting of interested parties back in 2010 which led to the formation of the Ceredigion Moth Group and his enthusiasm and commitment attracted many new moth-ers.  He had earlier been awarded an MBE for his outstanding work for the Red Kite Trust and was able to use this expertise in helping to establish the group.  Firstly, with the help of several group members, he organised the digitisation of all past moth records for Ceredigion (VC46).  He also initiated the transfer of local Rothamsted records to the database and started to liaise with the local Records Centre, WWBIC.  In addition to collecting records from existing sites he proposed that we trapped on all National Trust land in the county to extend the number of recorded squares and we had many happy meetings together to this end.

As his age advanced, he realised the necessity of handing over to a younger member and Tony kindly stepped up to the challenge with Ina later taking on the previously ignored micro records.

Two years ago, he moved to East Sussex to be nearer his family.  He continued to trap down there with their support and was delighted to tell us in regular phone calls of the moths he caught that were unique to his part of the country.

We will miss a very good friend and fellow moth enthusiast.

 Carolyn & Evan

Tuesday 5 April 2022

Macro moths of Ceredigion document

 This document has just been updated to include all 2021 records. It is available for download from the "Documents" page.

 Also available is the latest version (9) of the VC46 Macro Moths Entry Sheet.

Tony

Monday 4 April 2022

Great Prominent

 A mild wet night produced 16 macro species in the oak woodland with Brindled Pug and Double-striped Pug in double figures and this rather early Great Prominent.  The only micro was this rather attractive Dyseriocrania subpurpurella.

Carolyn & Evan




Saturday 2 April 2022

Link to Carmarthenshire Moth Blog

 Dear Ceredigion moth recorders.

There has been difficulty in accessing the Carmarthenshire moth blog site in the last week or so.

Please note that it can be accessed via: https://carmarthenshiremoths.blogspot.com/