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

Later this afternoon, I was out and about and the outside entrance light to a block of flats near my house produced several Moth species that included up to 4 Common Grass-veneer (Agriphila tristella), a single Chevron Grass-moth (Agriphila geniculea) and a Double-striped Pug. These outside lights to the entrance to flats and Retirement Buildings can turn up some nice Moths and another property held a couple more Common Grass-moths and a Small Dusty Wave along with a Common Plume (Emmelina monodactyla)!

One of several Common Grass-moths found today.

While out around the edge of Langstone Harbour, near Eastney, I heard the distinctive call of a Grey Wagtail overhead and saw a pair of birds flying high over heading south. It is about this time of year that they are on the move as numbers begin to swell from the Continent into the UK.