First part of May

Apart from a couple of nights it's still not really got going yet this year in the garden. I have however managed  to get only my second ever garden Powdered Quaker and second ever Purple Thorn, which unfortunately got away before the shutter clicked. Waved Umber has produced a handful of specimens every year so far., all but one previously in April.

April...

...can be summed up in one statistic and one slang word.
April 2011 = 34 species, April 2013 = 5.
Sh*te
and one photo of the only moth worth mentioning

The autumn... apparently

For the sake of completeness I thought I ought to blog what happened at Wychwood moths from mid September through November, but it won't take long. Disappointing to put it mildly compared with the previous two autumns. After a peak of Lunar Underwings it was just the usual reasonable showings from Black Rustic, Blairs Shoulder Knot and Red-green Carpet, it was odd singles of the remaining commoner species from the list. Managed to get just one each of the two "lined" Quakers,  Sallow, Large Ranunculus, November Moth and a couple of Feathered Thorn. So many species not occurring at all that I have had in multiple numbers before eg Chestnuts.

First half of September

Rather tedious with a list for each night that was effectively the same, dominated by common brown stuff though in good numbers, with the monotony broken with a selection of my regular carpets (Green, Garden, Common and Common Marbled).
The only real highlight was a garden first, Feathered Gothic, which was trapped on 4th and 6th... and was brown.

 Feathered Gothic - garden first, trapped 4th and 6th

Silver Y - numerous this year, trapped on majority of nights in August and still around on 15th Sept

Old Lady - a common visitor throughout August and September

Toadflax Pug - tiny beastie, one on 2nd Sept was third for garden, previous two in July 2011 and 2012

A garden tick to end August

To end the month, macro number 240 for the garden was a nice surprise. 

Maidens Blush - new for garden 31st August

Mouse - regularly found running around the bottom of the trap in August and September

Yellow Shell - very common in the garden but this one was very nicely marked

Two new in two minutes

Two new for the garden out of two consecutive egg boxes this morning. One that has been caught by most of the active trappers locally now though still nationally rare, the other a partial fill for the prominent gap recently posted.

Small Ranunculus - new for garden 22nd August

Pale Prominent - new for garden 22nd August

Tawny Speckled Pug - not very many of these trapped here, either that or they are so battered that the tawny is not visible and they go in the pug sp box (four in 2010, all in August, but none in 2011, when I was away for most of August). Not illustrated on the blog previously

Wormwood Pug - just a couple a year of these. Not illustrated on the blog previously

Orange Swift - another one that was surprisingly not caught at all in 2011 maybe as I missed the main flight period

The Prominent gap

There is a section in the middle of the Beds macro moth list of seven species called "prominent", all listed as common and widespread in VC30. This is a prominent gap as far as Wychwood Moths is concerned with only three individuals ever caught from this group in the first two years. These were two Maples and a Coxcomb leaving five of the seven available species still waiting to arrive. A fourth "prom" individual was most welcome this week but I was a little disappointed that it was a third Maple, still a nice species to look at.