Blair's Shoulder-knot moth added to year list.

Sunday 24th October 2021.

Blair's Shoulder-knot, my first of the year. 

It was back to the moths again this morning and my third moth ‘year-tick’ of the week was happily perched on the fence near the moth box, early this morning. It was dark when I first checked on the box at 6.30am and I quickly grabbed one of my pots to place a Blair’s Shoulder-knot moth into it. A quick check around the box revealed a few Common Plume’s, but it wasn't till 8am that I gave the area a thorough search.

Blastobasis lacticolella was a surprise moth this morning.

There were quite a few moths present, much more than I thought, which included the following:

• 1 Blair’s Shoulder-knot
• 1 Garden Carpet
• 1 Pale Mottled Willow
• 1 Feathered Ranunculus
• 1 L-album Wainscot
• 1 Bloxworth Snout
• 9 Box Tree Moth
• 1 Beautiful Plume
• 6 Common Plume
• 1 Tachystola acroxantha
• 6 Light Brown Apple Moth
• 1 Blastobasis lacticolella 

A Light Brown Apple Moth with a Box Tree Moth.  

I was out and about with my wife today, also helping out my daughter and her partner clean their house and taking stuff to Petersfield Refuse Tip and on my journey, there were sightings of a Kestrel hovering near the A3M by Farlington Marshes and over in Waterlooville, around the new Berewood estate, I spotted a Red Kite hunting over the farmland to the south. Sadly, where my daughter was living, the wasteland opposite her old residence is being sold for development; the same place where birding pal, John Goodall, had a Barn Owl one winter. The Government is intent on ripping up the countryside to make way for more unaffordable houses and accepting tens of thousands of more immigrants into the UK. The future looks so bleak for our children and grandchildren. 

The Blair's Shoulder-knot moth next to the worn Bloxworth Snout.