UPDATE: 7 Jan 2019 I haven’t lit up for a couple of weeks now, never did see a Merv nor a December moth, but I did have a November and a Winter and a Mottled Umber all of which fly late into the year. The total by the time I stopped trapping was 129 different species photographed since 24th July.
UPDATE: As of 17 Sep 2018, almost two months on with probably two weeks missing over that period, I have now photographed and identified more than 100 species of moth.
Just a couple of weeks further on and I reckon I added another 20 species to the list, some of which were specimens I’d not logged nor recognised when I began and some new for the autumn collection.
If Excel isn’t lying to me and I’ve included all of the species I have ID’ed or had ID’ed for me, then my list is 75 species of moths long. Photos of all of them are in the Imaging Storm Lepidoptera gallery. Most recent additions to the list include the Wax Moth, Angle Shades, Vine’s Rustic, Straw Underwing, and the superbly named Elbow-striped Grass-veneer!
There were a few on the list before I started with the borrowed Robinson Trap, such as Cinnabar, Hummingbird Hawk-moth, and Six-spotted Burnet, but the majority have been in or around this trap over the last month. There are probably dozens more species of micro-moths that I haven’t attempted to photograph, ID, and add to the list, and there are bound to be aggregates, variants, and distinct species I’ve missed.
Favourites so far have to be the Orange Swift (top of this page), the Elephant Hawk-moth (the one above this paragraph), Angle Shades (just below).
I know some readers think of themselves as mottephobes. To be honest, I thought I was until I took a closer look at these wonderful creatures with a macro lens and a new perspective.
Oh, the Elbow-striped Grass-veneer (Agriphila geniculea), here he is:
Originally posted 25 Aug 2018 @ 18:15. Full list of moths can be found here.