Gull Flock in Miniature

It's no secret that I enjoy the sometimes tricky challenge of gull identification. Unsurprisingly, the very same jollies are there to be had in the world of moths. The pug family is a good example, but last year I was exposed to another: Scoparid moths. I was too fresh a beginner to take them on in the moth avalanche of summer 2022, but now I am ready. Just like gulls, they are largely monochrome, with a bit of brown here and there. Last night I caught nine. Here are eight of them...

I don't think any were longer than 9 or 10mm, so yes, they are small, dull, and all look the same. So why bother, right? Well, in the collage above are three different species. One of them (two individuals) is designated Nationally Scarce B and is new for the garden. Definitely worth the bother.

I'll come back to this lot a bit later. In the meantime, a quick summary of the last couple of nights...

Tuesday night

50 moths of 29 species is the lowest tally for a quite a while. Even so, five of those 29 were new for the year...

First Buff Arches of the summer.

Encountering this salted caramel confection for the first time was a major highlight of last year's mothing. It is common though, and the novelty did wear off. Even so, what a snazzy moth!

Pristine Common Footman, the year's first. There will be lots of these to come...

Pristine V-Pug, the year's first, etc...

Caught two of these last year, which possibly makes our garden a Bridport hotspot - there only three other local dots on the Living Record map.

Not the first this year, but a pretty fresh one.

Small Elephant Hawk-moth was another 'new for year' on Tuesday night, but I managed to make a pig's ear of the photos. I first met this species last summer, but had forgotten how tiny they are.

 

Wednesday night

A night with a theme (see photo at top of post) but also some cracking moths that weren't monochrome. 126 was the total, made up of 43 species. Six new for year, of which four new for garden.

Most of the moths pictured so far have been in amazingly good nick, evidently newly emerged in some cases. This unseemly focus on perfection has been noted by one NQS reader. So, to prove that Dorset moth folk value all moths, regardless of condition, some of the following images feature moths with missing scales...

Just a Common Carpet, but I like these.

Broken-barred Carpet. Caught one of these last year, on almost exactly the same date.

Actually new for the garden on Monday night, but escaped the studio. Rediscovered yesterday, lurking in the conservatory. Treated much less complacently second time around.

Our second Scorched Carpet of 2023. Scuffed, nicked and battered too.

Pristine, immaculate... Blair's Mocha #7

Small Fan-footed Wave. Very alert, very ready to fly at the slightest provocation.

The Med Gull of Scoparids, perhaps. Also, Nationally Scarce B. Quite a few local records though, so I guess it is not too uncommon within its range.

New for the garden, and characterful with it. Win, win.

I nearly overlooked this little cracker. Shan't tell you what I momentarily thought it was, in my bleary-eyed state, but it's no bigger than many pugs, so there's a clue. Anyway, this is Small Seraphim. A garden first, and definitely scarce locally. There are only two nearby dots on Living Record.

I predict lots of these...

...and lots of these.

Another common one, but with that attenuated shape, straightforward to identify.

A common, and increasingly familiar micro.

I remember trapping one of these tiny moths last year but cannot find any record of it, so this counts as new for the garden. Designated 'Local', there are a few Bridport area records.

So, back to the miniature gulls. As the summer progresses, I expect to see more and more of those little monochrome moths. A number of species might turn up here, and I really ought to make the effort to learn them. To that end, I took that collage of eight depicted above, plus my copy of Nick Asher's Common Micro-moths of Berkshire, and applied what's left of my brain to the ID puzzle. Here is what I made of it...

1, 2, 3 - Eudonia lacustrata; 4, 5 E. delunella (#5 presumably a weakly-marked individual); 6 - E. mercurella; 7, 8 - E. lacustrata (#8 a bit worn)

Common Micro-moths of Berkshire is a brilliant volume, and I find myself referring to it all the time. All credit to it then, that my ID conclusions received a pleasing thumbs-up from one or two very experienced moth folk. Without that book I would have been fumbling.

Okay, no more mention of gulls.*

 

* Obviously I mean the metaphorical kind. Real gulls are due a lot of mentions. Always.

The Ups and Downs of Moth Identification

I can't be bothered to look up the exact figure, but I know there are 600-and-something birds on the British List. Faced with almost any of them in the field, I could put a name to it. Several decades of experience has put me in this happy position. Even so, I do say 'almost' for good reason, because there are plenty of species which could potentially catch me out. That said, I am pretty confident that a day's local birding is unlikely to present me with a bird I cannot identify.

Yep, give me a bird and I am snugly in my comfort zone.

I can't be bothered to look up the exact figure, but I know there are a zillion-and-something moths on the British List. Faced with almost any of them in the field, I most definitely could not put a name to it. One year of experience has put me in this unhappy position. Even so, I do say 'almost' for good reason, because there are a few species which finally I have got to grips with. That said, I am pretty confident that a night's local moth-trapping is unlikely to present me with less than a hatful of moths that I cannot identify.

Yep, give me a moth and I am a floundering ignoramus.

There are roughly four times as many moths as birds on the British List, and learning how to identify them has been - and still is - a glorious lesson in humility. Just when you think you are sufficiently familiar with a species to nonchalently 'call' it from just a momentary glance, you discover it has a much scarcer doppelgänger that you could easily have overlooked, and your new-found confidence crumbles to dust.

However, on the off-chance I haven't mentioned this previously, being miles out of my comfort zone is actually a huge amount of fun. And, although I am still fairly useless, I detect a slow but steady improvement in my moth ID abilities. Especially gratifying is when you turn to the correct section of the field guide when faced with an unfamilar micro.

'YESSSS-S-S-S!! I knew it was a Gelichiid!'

Hard to beat that feeling...

Anyway, the last couple of nights have been quite fascinating, as per usual...

Sunday night

85 moths of 48 species, with just a single new for year; none new for garden.

A decent haul, and good variety, but disappointingly short on new species. Still, any catch with Blair's Mocha in it is okay by me...

Blair's Mocha #6 for 2023

Currant Pug

First Barred Straw of the year.

A tiny, almost immaculate Small Yellow Wave.

If getting moths to settle for a pic were on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 was 'like a dead slug' and 10 was 'absolute pig', this species is a good 9.

Monday night

A superb night's mothing, with a final tally of 142 moths and 63 species; 10 new for year, of which 5 new for garden.

One highlight was another reminder of my first experience of 'in the field' trapping, a year ago at Mapperton. As I've mentioned before, I managed to photograph two of the five nationally scarce species caught that night. One of them, I unexpectedly caught here in Bridport last week (the Cloaked Carpet featured in this post). The other seemed an equally unlikely garden turn-up, but...

Argolamprotes micella (Nationally Scarce B) perched on the lip of a Robinson MV trap at Mapperton a year ago.

As in the case of Cloaked Carpet, for some reason both the name and appearance of this tiny moth stuck in my brain. So, when I potted a well-marked little beastie off the top of our bucket trap last night, a quick glance through my lens told me exactly where in the index to check. And I was right. Lo and behold...

A delightful addition to the garden list.

The identification of another new moth for the garden didn't go quite as swimmingly...

A diminutive pug (slightly less than 9mm wing length) pitched up on the cabin wall and was quickly potted. Subtly marked, with a slit-shaped discal spot, I realised it was almost certainly a new species for me.

The mystery pug. Last night's in-the-garage pot shot.

For some reason I carefully checked all the possibilities except the one it clearly matched! Not sure how I overlooked the most obvious candidate, but there we are. When I eventually resorted to ObsIdentify, its strongest suggestion was Valerian Pug (about 70%) with a backup option of Slender Pug. Neither looked right. I kept coming back to Thyme Pug, but that species' range made it extremely unlikely to turn up in our garden. Stranger things have happened though. And then I found the mystery pug's twin in the trap at dawn. Two Thyme Pugs definitely was not a realistic possibility, so what on earth had I got here? Luke Phillips to the rescue: 'It's a Channel Islands Pug', he said. I checked the field guide and online photos. Sure enough, Channel Islands Pug was an obvious fit. And apparently there has been a recent emergence, and they are prone to wandering. Excellent! Currently there is just one Living Record dot of this Tamarisk-feeding species in the Bridport area. So, a very decent record.

Channel Islands Pug. A nice garden first, but slightly frustrating that I didn't arrive at the correct ID unaided.

Both of last night's Channel Islands Pugs.

Other highlights from last night...

One very large 'micro', and another first for the garden.

The year's first Elephant Hawk-moth. Outrageous livery! If this was a rarity, it would attract a lot more superlatives than most.

When completely at rest, this tiny moth basically stands on its head. A garden first which popped out of the wildlife hedge and into my net. Its larvae feed on Blackthorn, so I'm going to count this one as hedge-bred!

Double Square-spot. I love the geometrically neat blocks on this species. We had something like 13 records last year, and this is the first of 2023.

L-album Wainscot. Not new for the garden or for the year, just one of my favourite moths.

A pristine Coronet. Just gorgeous.

'What on earth is this?' was my reaction on picking it out of the net last night. Barred Red is the answer. A conifer feeder, so I'm not sure where it's from. A few Bridport records though, and this is our first.

Crowd pleaser. Our third Eyed Hawk-moth of the year, sneakily peeking.

Including aggregates, the 2023 moth tally stands at 254 now. The hours of lost sleep tally is probably similar...

No Rannoch Loopers Yet...

A small, inconspicuous brown moth is making Twitter headlines right now. Away from its Scottish Highlands stronghold, Rannoch Looper is rare in the UK, and the few Dorset records no doubt relate to immigrants from the Continent, whence it occasionally overspills in modest numbers. Like now. Most of the current arrival are being recorded on the east coast, but you never know. And at least my search image is fresh.

Twitter is great for moth news. I follow several other moth botherers, from beginners like me to experienced light-trap veterans. Many post highlights of their latest catches, which gives me a heads-up regarding what common species are freshly emerged and some of the less-everyday species to look out for. Because of this, I was able to put a name to a few of the last three nights' moths despite never having caught them before...

Thursday night

Many years ago I would have been camped out with fishing rods as the sun set, eagerly awaiting midnight and the start of the coarse fishing season. How times change. In 2023 I was prancing about the garden with a net, swiping at teeny moths. Which was a lot of childish fun, though most of the following were not netted...

92 moths of 42 species. Four new for year, three new for garden.

Lilac Beauty. This one was netted actually. New for the garden, and not on my radar at all. A truly stunning moth, with delicate markings, a bizarre resting posture and, yes, lilac bits.

Snout. Common, and appropriately named.

Shears. New for the garden, and apparently named after the 'shears' visible in its wing markings to those of an imaginative disposition.

Lobster Moth. New for the garden, this wooly mammoth is one of the most docile creatures I have had the pleasure of catching. If you don't know where it got that strange name, please google 'Lobster Moth larva'.

Small Fan-footed Wave. And small it is. First for 2023.

Friday night

114 moths of 50 species. Eight new for year, two new for garden.

The garden Plume Moth list stands at just five. I would like to add to that. In the meantime, this one is always welcome. An opportunistic shot captured outside the studio.

The first Cream-bordered Green Pea of 2023. We caught three last year. Potentially confusable with the next species, but totally different to my eye, with that 'tented' resting posture in addition to its whitish leading edge.

Tortrix viridana, or Green Oak Tortrix. Friday night's count of four is our best so far.

This is one of those little rolled-up moths that abound in grassland. Not long ago, I used to kick them up in numbers without a thought. Now that I know how many different species there are (including some scarcer ones) I shall look at them a bit more closely. Mind you, although this is a rather dark individual, C. culmella is dead common.

Muslin Footman. The first of the year. Small and flimsy is how I would describe this moth.

I've caught five Grey Pugs this year, all of which have misbehaved badly in the studio. This is the best shot so far.

First Setaceous Hebrew Character of 2023. In the mid-'90s I spent a weekend at Dungeness Bird Observatory in August. I have a memory of the warden, Dave Walker, emptying the moth trap and repeating 'Setaceous Hebrew Character' about a hundred times. It was my first encounter with the moth. The name stuck, and is forever associated with that morning.

This feathery pile of weirdness is a Pale Prominent, our first of the year.

Pale Prominent again. Still super-weird, but in more typical pose.

Thankfully I recognised this moth from last year, and saved myself a heap of time trawling fruitlessly through the micro-moth section of 'Manley'. It is a Pinion-streaked Snout, and smaller than a fair few micros. In fact, the next moth might well be larger...

A fairly hefty Tortrix, and a garden first. Common though.

Saturday night

Biggest count of 2023 so far, with 122 moths of 58 species. Nine new for year, but just one new for garden.

Blue-bordered Carpet. A pretty little moth. The first of 2023.

First Burnished Brass of the year. One of my all-time favourite moths. Gorgeous.

First Beautiful Hook-tip of the year. Always a smaller moth than I expect.

Common Emerald. It may be common, but it's also green. And all green moths are special.

Double-striped Pug. Easily the most regular pug I catch, but this one is as fresh as a daisy. Lovely.

First Sandy Carpet of 2023. Caught just two last year.

Really nice to catch this lovely Sharp-angled Carpet in the wake of the previous post's Cloaked Carpet. The garden's second.

There is always a load of bycatch in and around the moth trap. Rarely is any of it this spectacular though. Giant Lacewing Osmylus fulvicephalus is roughly 3cm long and quite an amazing beast. This is our second, but the first - a few days ago - avoided the camera.

The 2023 moth tally stands at 243 right now, including a few aggregates. I still intend to work out how many species we've caught since starting out just over a year ago, but it's more than enough admin just to keep up with the 2023 totals. One day...