Sunday, November 09, 2014

Late moths.

Red Sword-grass. Pic taken in poor light this morning.
Although we are hovering around the end of autumn, November can still provide some interesting species in the moth trap. A small catch of 5 moths this morning included a nice fresh Red Sword-grass. This is my third garden record, but my first in the autumn. The other two were spring records, as the moth winters as an adult. The only other time I have met with it is on holidays in Scotland where it seems to be a bit more common favouring upland moor and birch forest edges.

Not much else was seen today, having spent the best daylight hours in Newcastle shopping for furniture. On return, Bunty flushed a Woodcock from the corner of our garden, a Chiffchaff was in the village pond willows and 250+ Pink feet flew SE over head.



6 comments:

Steve Gale said...

I'll swap you one of my Jersey Tigers for one of these...

Stewart said...

Jersey tiger, I doubt I'll ever see one of those!

Anonymous said...

Like the Red Sword Grass, never seen one before. Still mothing here too although numbers are definitely dropping. Waiting for the December moth to appear...
Goldcrests have been about aplenty over the last week, making a right old racket. They seem to have gone quiet today, to be overtaken by the wren squawking in the flowerbed!

oldcrow61 said...

What a gorgeous moth. Lucky you.

Stewart said...

CT - RSG is a more upland or northerly species. But its a migrant too so you never know.

OC - Its no Black Bear OC but nice all the same ;)

The Wessex Reiver said...

That is an astonishing species Stewart - lovely photo - I'm slowly learning about moths and this one is fantastic.