Few moths, but a couple of 'Year-ticks'.

Saturday 23rd August 2025.

Dawn over our Cottage.

After getting up at around 4am and simply could not fall back to sleep, I decided to get up and dressed and put the dogs in the garden briefly and then made myself a coffee. It was obviously still dark outside, but a Little Owl was calling close to our Cottage, but no chance of a sighting. My Moth Box was up and running, but all I could see were Grass-moths by the Box, so I waited till around 5.45am to venture out to see if anything of note was around.

My Moth Box:

Common Wave. My first of the year.

It looked as though it was going to be a lovely day again, with plenty of blue sky as the sun rose behind the Cottage. A thin film of mist was over the field behind the trees (I could just see through the gap in the trees. Sadly, there were only 19 moths of 9 species this morning, which was probably due to it being quite cold and clear overnight. However, two of those species were new for the year that included a Common Wave * and the micro moth, Garden Rose Tortrix *. I knew there were going to be a lot of Grass-moths and most likely, there were probably more around, though finding any moth against the outside wall of the Cottage was a bit of a challenge! A little while later in the morning, I found a Green Carpet moth perched by the front door to add to the small collection today. 

Left, my first Garden Rose Tortrix of the year and right, one of ten Common Grass-moths.

The Moths recorded this morning included the following:

MACRO MOTHS	MICRO MOTHS
Large Yellow Underwing x1	Common Grass-moth x10
Light Emerald x1	Garden Rose Tortrix x1 *
Brimstone Moth x2	Rusty-dot Pearl x1
Common Wave x1 *
Setaceous Hebrew Character x1
Green Carpet x1

As dawn arose, the birds started coming out and overhead, I could hear the ‘buzzing’ calls of House Martins as a flock of four birds flew high over and eventually joined by a few Swallows. In the trees, a pair of Goldcrests were hunting for insects and a male Chaffinch flew in briefly. I shall take the dogs for a good walk after I have written up this entry to my blog; so more sightings to follow, hopefully.

A misty start to the morning over some of the countryside here.

Our first ‘port of call’ today was to visit a Supermarket in Barnstaple where we had a nice breakfast and got most of the shopping done. Within the Car Park, I pointed out to Becky a pair of Goldcrests flitting about in the Ornamental trees right by the car itself. Just a shame I never had my camera on me. a few Common Buzzards were seen on the way there, with one bird seen balancing on an overhead wire near the roadside.

Above, the first Blackbird I have seen here was by the big field. Below, a male Chaffinch flew in and landed in next door's garden.

Above, later in the morning, I found this Green Carpet moth perched by the front door and below, the Red Admiral butterfly on the Buddleia in the garden.

We chilled out for the rest of the day in both the garden and out in the nearby field where we walked the dogs again. From the garden, there were a few butterflies flying around the garden and taking advantage of the last few Buddleia flowers from a large tree by the side of the garden. However, it looks as though they have not had hardly any rain here recently and the garden was looking very dry and the leaves on the Buddleia were wilting badly. However, it did attract a Red Admiral and Small Copper butterflies and a few Small White’s passed through the garden.

Above and below, a Small Copper butterfly was a welcome visitor to the garden.

Above, another Common Grass-moth taking refuge after my dogs disturbed it. Below, the Boys!

Enjoying a mug of coffee before we took a walk around the nearby field, there were a few birds noted in the trees and overhead that included a Coal Tit, Chiffchaff and a couple of Linnets. The latter flew high over the Cottage along with a couple of Goldfinches. It was fairly quiet within the field, though the dogs enjoyed themselves, being free to run around without their harnesses on and flushing loads of Common Grass-moths in doing so!

Matt & Emma took this photo this morning of a juvenile (left) and adult White-tailed Eagle at Amberley Brooks, West Sussex, this morning.