One new moth for the year.

Friday 4th August 2023.

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing.

It was much cooler in the garden at 5.40am this morning, with a north-westerly wind keeping temperatures down to just 13 degrees centigrade. Again, it was dry with a patchy sky overhead and checking the white sheet behind the moth box, apart from a Brimstone Moth sticking out like a sore thumb, there were relatively few moths present. That was the story for this morning when I finally counted all the moths. However, there was one new moth for the year; the micro moth Horse-chestnut Leaf Miner.

A rather worn Horse-chestnut Leaf Miner.

This particular moth, though mine was a bit worn, is quite an attractive little thing when seen up close, however, it has a dark side to it. Take a stroll around Highland Road Cemetery and check the leaves of the Horse Chestnut trees within there and you will see the  results of the mining activity of the grubs this tiny little moth has done. Very few leaves are unaffected, but on the positive side, it does not kill the tree as it eventually sheds its leaves in Autumn and goes on to produce more fresh leaves the following year and start the process all over again. That's nature!

Above, the damage caused by the grubs of the Horse-chestnut Leaf Miner.

Marbled Beauty.

Of the other moths present this morning, one of the smaller types of Silver Y, a Marbled Beauty, my second Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing of the year were probably the pick of the small bunch of macro moths today.

The moths present this morning included the following: 

• 3 Riband Wave
• 1 Marbled Beauty
• 2 Garden Carpet
• 5 Brimstone Moth
• 1 Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing
• 1 Silver Y
• 1 Common Rustic
• 13 Light Brown Apple Moth
• 1 Mint Moth
• 1 Rosy Tabby
• 1 Beautiful Plume
• 7 Common Plume
• 2 Ruddy Streak
• 1 Dingy Dowd
• 1 Apple Leaf Miner
• 1 Horse-chestnut Leaf Miner (NFY)

In Hampshire yesterday, local birder Amy Robjohns had both Pomarine and two Arctic Skua off Hill Head early in the morning. Both Whinchat and Wheatear were also noted, proving that migration is on its way. Nationally, a Hudsonian Godwit is on the Mainland, Shetlands for its third day at least. Cornwall is still experiencing good numbers of the larger Shearwaters off its various headlands and also Wilson’s Petrels are still being seen too. I was lucky enough to be on one of the last ‘Pelagics’ from Penzance to go out to the infamous ‘Wilson’s Triangle’ to see the Wilson’s Petrels many years ago; an experience I shall never forget. Not only did we go through some stormy conditions (it did eventually clear, though I have never seen so many people sea-sick and ill-looking in one place, lol ), but also experienced first hand the absolutely awful smell of ‘Chum’! A mixture of all things revolting and totally gut-wrenching if you are caught downwind from it. But once the stuff is checked out onto what looks like a totally bird-less sea, they suddenly come pouring in from simply nowhere! Then the birding was simply sublime, with all the seabirds you want to see all close up, including the Wilson’s Petrels.