Collecting Points

Great to see my favoured Coventry City back at their rightful home and taking three points this week.
I had a Point of my own as well with this garden first; seems to have been a good year for them with records I am aware of also from Biggleswade and Sandy.

White-point, a first for the garden on 30th August

Also trapped over the last week, a few decent brown jobs among the three-figure counts of Large Yellow Underwings including the first proper autumn moths: Centre-barred Sallow and Feathered Gothic

 Feathered Gothic - fantastic antenna

Nutmeg - less than annual at Wychwood Moths 5th Sep

Small Square-spot - a small fresh second generation individual

Start of August update

July was not so good as last year, no doubt the result of the cooler wetter weather. Wychwood Moths recorded just 80 macro species in the whole month compared with 112 in July 2010. Fortunately there were a few good ones in there as previously shared. Here is a catchup on some images taken in the last week or so including a few from the first couple of days in August when thankfully the last three warm nights have increased the volumes and the species count has gone back above my "aim" of 30+ per night.

Currant Pug

Maple Pug - this tiny one just reached 8mm on the ruler for the forewing length

Small Rivulet - rather battered unfortunately

Large Twin-spot Carpet - again rather battered but was a NFG on 1st August

Nutmeg

Heart & Club gallery - lots of variation again. Biggest numbers between mid-June and mid-July with a one night maximum of 23, a little short of the 34 last year.

Grey Dagger agg.

Bright-line Brown-eye

Phoenix - three of these now this year, one of my favourites

Scalloped Oak - had more in 2011, one night max of 3, this one is "peppered"

Dunbar - top image is the darkest one I have had, the vast majority are of the pale form

Cloaked Minor - not had many of these this year

Quiet mid-July - but still two New

Cooler, wetter weather and fewer moths to report but I still have managed to add two to the garden list this week. One is an old record thanks to gendet by our recorder. I submitted a sample of the small pugs that I was unable to identify from the glut that I had on 21/22 April. I was expecting that they were a mix of poorly marked Brindled and Oak-tree though I did have one interesting pale sandy coloured individual in the sample. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I had TWO male Ocherous Pug records for the garden from this set. There are less than ten VC30 records and these represent the first away from the greensand ridge.

New this week was a garden first Nutmeg and a couple of expected common species.

Common Rustic agg. which confused me for a while - first for year 18/7. A small individual with a forewing of 12-13mm so same size as a Marbled Minor agg. in the trap next to it

The Nutmeg - new for garden 17/7, at least that's what I think it is, well dusted with grey

Common Wainscot - first time I have had an individual that resembles the "orange" one in the book

Mottled Rustic, a smart pale one

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing, first for year 19/7