Quieter in my moth box, until.......

Sunday 7th August 2022.

A Common Wainscot in my box this morning.

It was obviously a cloudless sky last night, which was not good news if there was to be a lot of moths in my box this morning. Yep, numbers were a lot lower than recently and nothing new for the year either which was disappointing. A total of 64 moths of 24 species were present this morning including 17 Garden Tiger moths and my first Common Wainscot for a few weeks.

A Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet was in James Cutting's moth box this morning. I have only ever seen one before and that was down in Cornwall.  

A Meal Moth added a bit of colour among the micro moths, while a Bud Moth and a Broom Shoot Moth were welcome guests too. Birding pal Geoff Farwell went to Farley Mount yesterday (near Winchester) and notched up the following sightings: 3 Common Whitethroats, 9 Blackcaps, 4 Willow Warbler, 2 Marsh Tit, Red Kite, Hobby and a steady passage of both Swallow and House Martins. The ‘Lazee’s’ organised a field trip to see the Honey Buzzards at a location in the New Forest and was successful with at least one sighting.  I literally just got a message from fellow Lazee Birder, James Cutting to ID a moth for him and it looks good for a Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet. Lucky him!

Above, some of the Lazee's enjoying the Honey Buzzard at a site in the New Forest. Below, one of the birds that flew through. Photos by Andy Tew.

The moths present this morning included the following:

• 17 Garden Tiger
• 6 Double-striped Pug
• 4 Lime-speck Pug
• 2 Buff Ermine 
• 2 Bright-line Brown-eye
• 2 Pale Mottled Willow
• 2 Vines Rustic
• 2 Common Rustic agg.
• 1 Turnip Moth
• 1 Common Wainscot
• 1 Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
• 2 Small Dusty Wave
• 9 Common Plume
• 2 Beautiful Plume
• 1 Bud Moth
• 1 Clepsis consimilana
• 1 Bryotropha affinis
• 1 Anania coronata
• 1 Tachystola acroxantha
• 1 Broom Shoot Moth
• 1 Meal Moth
• 2 Brown House Moth
• 1 Celypha striana
• 1 Light Brown Apple Moth

This is my first ever Pine-leaf Mining Moth, Clavigesta purdeyi.

It was late this afternoon that I realised that I had another micro moth to ID and though Obsidentify was throwing up some strange conclusions, I had a bit of a brain wave and decided to photograph the moth in micro mode on my Panasonic Bridge Camera. That seemed to do the trick as I then took a photo using my mobile phone of the back of the camera and then put it on Obsidentify. It did the trick and it was 100% a Pine-leaf Mining Moth.