Always Worth a Punt?

With 20 years of inner Lyme Bay birding under my belt, you'd think I ought to know when seawatching is worth a punt, right? How about when there's a brisk WSW, and Cory's Shearwaters are at that moment clogging the sea from Penzance to Scilly? Er, yes, obviously. And my 90-minute West Bay vigil on Monday morning was rewarded accordingly: 238 Gannets, 3 Manx, 2 Kitts, a Common Scoter and 2 Tufties. A tiny dark speck glimpsed momentarily among the waves would doubtless have turned into a Storm Petrel had it been less subliminal, but that is as close as I got to excitement.

I suppose the lesson is: yes, seawatching is always worth a punt, but never expect anything.

The same might be said of moth trapping. The only difference is, moth trapping seems a lot more generous in the rewards department...

Sunday night, July 30th

Sunday night is now so long ago that I cannot recall why the catch might have been so poor, but poor it was, with a pathetic total of eight moths trapped. At least they were all different species, and one was new for the year...

A rather lovely Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing.

Monday night, July 31st

A big improvement on the previous night, with 68 moths of 39 species. Two were new for year, one new for garden...

One of four similar moths, but thankfully all doable without surgery. New for the garden, this species is listed as common, but there is only a single Bridport area dot on Living Record. Under-recorded no doubt.

A poorly-marked example of this unspectacular moth. We had a couple last year too.

Our third, and a nicely-marked one too.

Great to catch this moth again, and to get a photo of it in fully-relaxed mode.

So Monday night was all about the micros, and I was beginning to wonder when we were going to see some new macro-moths for the garden. I need not have worried...

Wednesday night, August 2nd

Tuesday night was forecast to be a wash-out, so I didn't put the trap out. Most of Wednesday was wet and windy, with some heavy downpours, and come the evening I nearly didn't bother again. We were out until late, but returning in the dark it was obvious that plenty of moths were abroad. It was fairly still, mostly overcast. I'd taken a punt, and the trap had been on since we left. I had a good feeling...

112 moths of 58 species; four new for year, three new for garden.

The classiest moth of the night fell not to the light trap, but to the net. I just happened to be in the right place as a big, flappy moth came bombing past, heading away from the trap. I thought it was going to be a Willow Beauty, but the head torch showed me a shiny moth, slightly reminiscent of a flyweight Old Lady. It was much better than Old Lady though...

The Tissue

When I sussed what it was, I remembered that Tissue is a species which hibernates in caves and whatnot, like Herald. So I was expecting it to be fairly common. Well, it isn't...

The Tissue Living Record map for Dorset. Those two blobs represent one record apiece, dated 2014 and 2015.

I find it hard to believe this species hasn't been recorded in Dorset for eight years. Whatever though, a quality catch.

The next new moth for the garden was on the cabin wall when I went to get the trap in this morning...

A worn Mullein Wave. Common enough in Dorset, but new for me.

The third and final new species for the garden was in the trap, but I almost dismissed it as a very worn Garden Carpet. That dark collar looked a bit too broad though, so I potted it...

It was too broad. This is Royal Mantle, another class Dorset moth. Clearly a rather knackered example, and I would recommend looking it up in order to see what a striking moth it is when fresh.

Checking Living Record for some indication of the species' status in the county revealed its evident scarcity...

Those blobs represent a total of just eight records.

There is already a Bridport record: Luke Phillips trapped one in 2021. However, Royal Mantle is not a species recorded every year in Dorset.

So, two pretty scarce moths, and macros at that, make for a very successful night already. But there was one more new moth for the year...

On Saturday we took our granddaughters to a wildlife park near Axminster. As we enjoyed a picnic beneath a large Horse Chestnut tree, I found myself distracted by the myriad micro-moths buzzing around the blotch-ridden leaves. I stood up for a better look - the lower leaves were only shoulder height - and almost blurted out loud: 'Ah, Cameraria ohridella! Of course!' I kid you not, that scientific name sprang effortlessly to mind. My next thought was: 'About time I had that at home.' Well, yes, and so it was...

For scale, that plastic pot (one of the little ones I use for micros) is 18mm internal diameter.

And some padders...

A pretty Marbled Green, our second of the year.

Brussels Lace, always worth a photo.

4x Phyllocnistis saligna. Last night's haul was an amazing five, but one got away.

I've mentioned before that this species is very sparsely recorded in Dorset. Here's the Living Record map...

The Puddletown blob represents five records, otherwise it's just our two from last year in Bridport, and three singles.

Including tonight (one caught so far) we've already recorded this moth five times this year. For some reason we seem to be in a P. saligna hotspot. Not many people can say that, and I expect there's going to be a lot of jealousy out there now...

This is the first NQS post for a very long time that has not been plugged on Twitter, so I shall be interested to see how that affects the blog's 'traffic'. Quite considerably, is my guess.

My love/hate relationship with Twitter is finally over, and @NotQuiteScilly is no more.