Sunday, 24 July 2016

24th July

The conditions looked good for moth trapping last night so John Edwards came over to the village to set three traps in the Magic Garden. Whilst we were setting up I spotted my first Comma of the year…


It proved to be an excellent catch, with these boxes representing just the moths found on the outside of the traps!


In total there were over 750 moths of 117 species (with another half dozen to be confirmed). By some way the largest catch we have ever had in the parish. 
Perhaps the most interesting find was nine of the rare micro moth Prochoreutis myllerana one of which we caught in June (see blog entry 14th June). At that time that was the first record for North-west Yorkshire. I think this now means there have been more recorded in this one garden than in the rest of Yorkshire put together!
There were a number of new additions to the parish list including an exquisite Beautiful China Mark and Blue-bordered Carpet. I’ll include more details and some pictures in a later post.

As usual there were some striking species including a handful of these Garden Tigers


And this smaller, subtler Ruby Tiger…


Burnished Brass...


A Grey Dagger species..


And this Swallow Prominent...


There’s also usually a few other groups attracted to the traps including this large beetle


I think it’s one of the carrion beetles, possibly Nicrophorus investigator.

Finally, I can’t resist another Whitethroat photograph. This is a young bird photographed this morning…


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