Time to put the moth box away

After the angle shades in the kitchen and the 2 brindled greens in the toilet block at Wembury I decided I would have the moth box out in the back yard on the night of the 22nd October. It was overcast and mild but with a strong Southerly wind and the next morning for my troubles I had 1 micro moth in the trap, a Light Brown Apple Moth. It is a moth that is becoming increasingly common in the UK, having been introduced here from Australia and I regularly have them in the trap over the summer although I tend not to take much notice of them. Next year I must start paying more attention to the micro-moths.

Light Brown Apple Moth

So it is now time to put the moth box away for the winter and to sort out all my moth notes to send off to the county moth recorder.

However we travelled up to Bude on the 23rd October to help the out-laws clean and wrap up the caravan for the year and I managed a few moth sightings including 2 new species! The toilet block held an angle shades and my first new moth, a dark chestnut.

Dark Chestnut

Angle Shades

The security light on the roof of the portable toilet waste block was on so I wandered down to have a look and found 3 flame shoulders, a rusty dot pearl, what I think is a faded brindled green and new for me, 2 lunar underwings.

Rusty Dot Pearl

Faded Brindled Green?

Lunar Underwing

Also seen were a flyover raven, a red admiral and 5 flyover Canada geese.

It was a mild day with a very strong Southerly wind which made putting the cover over the caravan fun but it was soon packed away and we headed home, Winter is definently coming now.