Golden spell

As has been the case in recent  summers the middle to end of July is proving to be the best period for diversity of species in the garden and a golden spell of three new for the list in three days had an obvious highlight for me, a Golden Plusia, not only a rare species in the county at the moment but to my eyes a very nice looking one. Also new and generally more common was a Small Dotted Buff and a Small Phoenix. This followed on from two others new at the start of the month, Orange Footman and Small Yellow Wave. Also illustrated a very smart  Oak Nycteoline, very much better than the normal fairly plain ones I get.

 Golden Plusia - new for garden 20th July

Small Dotted Buff - new for garden 19th July

Small Yellow Wave - new for garden 4th July

Snall Phoenix - new for garden 21st July

Oak Nycteoline - this one trapped 10th July

Oak Nycteoline... first "goodie" of the year

Warm and cloudy evening produced my first real variety of the year from the garden trap. Top spot on the list goes to this garden first Oak Nycteoline which seems to be rather an unusual species in Bedfordshire. The book tells me this is of the form "notata".
Also new for the garden in the last couple of nights have been a Twin-spotted Quaker and Shoulder Stripe (three records) and a couple of micros that I actually managed to identify !

Oak Nycteoline (form notata) - garden first 22/3/11

Twin spotted Quaker

Shoulder Stripe

Full garden list for the evening of March 22nd: 20 macro of 9 species

Common Quaker - 5

Hebrew Character - 8

Small Quaker - 1

Clouded Drab - 1

Twin Spotted Quaker - 1 NFG

Double-striped Pug - 1 FFY

March Moth - 1
Early Grey - 1

Oak Nycteoline - 1 NFG

Twenty Plume Moth

Emmelina monodactyla

Diurnea fagella NFG