Beet Moth added to my Moth Year List.

Wednesday 2^nd September 2026.

It has been a good couple of weeks for Vestal moths in my garden.

Another bright start to the morning with very light westerly wind and temperatures at 8.30am around 17 degrees. A slightly higher number of moths recorded here in my garden this morning, which included another species added to my year list. Sadly, no visible migration overhead during the 30 minutes I was out in the garden and even the surrounding gardens were very quiet today.

A blue sky with patchy cloud at 6.30am this morning.

Showers are forecast here on the south coast later today though I heard on the BBC News that a heatwave is taking place down in Portugal and Southern Spain and this weekend, it is warming up again. Hurrumph!

 

My Moth Box:

This Beet Moth was my first for the year.

A larger total of moths than yesterday with 51 moths of 21 species recorded today. Pick of the bunch was my first Beet Moth (Scrobipalpa ocellatella) of the year. This is a coastal micro moth that frequents shingle coasts and saltmarshes, but a rare moth species to my garden. They are known to be a pest species where the Caterpillar will eat the leaves of Beet, however, the adult only lives for around 12 to 18 days!

Plumed Fan-foot moth. Again, a good year for this species in my garden.

Other notable moths included yet another Vestal (I can never get bored of these delightful little moths) and a Plumed Fan-foot (another scarce moth) was a good record too. Up to 3 Golden Twin-spots, Clancy’s Rustic, Olive-tree Pearl (Palpita vitrealis) and Rusty-dot Pearl (Udea ferrugalis) were the migrant moths.

A rather late Least Carpet to my Moth Box.

A Least Carpet sitting on the base of the Moth Box was unusual for this time of year (for my garden especially).  The Moths recorded here this morning were as follows:

 

MACRO MOTHS	MICRO MOTHS
Vestal x1	Rusty-dot Pearl x14
Willow Beauty x1	Light Brown Apple Moth x5
Golden Twin-spot x3	Beautiful Plume x1
L-album Wainscot x5	Common Plume x3
Double-striped Pug x1	Chevron Grass-moth x2
Setaceous Hebrew Character x1	Barred Marble x1
Pale Mottled Willow x1	Beet Moth * x1
Clancy’s Rustic x1	Apple Leaf Miner x3
Least Carpet x1	Tree-mallow Tortrix x3
Plumed Fan-foot x1	Olive-tree Pearl x1
Cabbage Moth x1