Sunday and Monday mornings saw us waking up to light coverings of snow here although on both days it soon turned to rain. Since then it has been very cold, almost as though we are having a proper winter for once.
Garden Moths 2024.
For various reasons including but not limited to poor weather and family commitments, my garden moth trapping in 2024 was very erratic and completely went to pot in August, so much so that I decided to knock it on the head for the rest of the year.
Nevertheless, I still saw some nice moths which included the only new species for the when I ran the trap for the first time of the year on the night of February 3rd. This was a Spring Usher, a very variable and common enough species that had avoided my garden up until then.
- Spring Usher - Coverdale 03.02.2024
That first night also produced a Dotted Border, another very variable species as shown by the two examples below, the first one from the 3rd and another from the 14th February.
- Dotted Border - Coverdale 03.02.2024
- Dotted Border - Coverdale 14.02.2024
The last week of Feb and into March saw the usual spring species such as Common Quaker, Hebrew Character and Clouded Drab appear but not as many as in previous years.
- Hebrew Character - Coverdale 19.03.2024
This continued through March and into April with the added appearance of a few favourites such as Oak Beauty, Brindled Beauty and Waved Umber.
- Oak Beauty - Coverdale 14.03.2024
- Brindled Beauty - Coverdale - 30.04.2024
- Waved Umber - Coverdale 11.04.2024
The night of May 2nd produced a Puss Moth, just the second one I have ever had here after the first one back in 2016 which was the year I started running the moth trap here.
- Puss Moth - Coverdale 02.05.2024
Mid May produced the first Hawk-moths of the year with both Lime and Poplar Hawk-moths turning up on the night of the 17th. Lime Hawk-moth in particular seemed to have a good year here with three turning up on the 17th plus a couple more later in the month.
- Lime Hawk-moth - Coverdale 17.05.2024
- Poplar Hawk-moth - Coverdale 17.05.2024
I also reared a few Lime Hawk-moths from eggs left me by a female in 2022, most of which emerged later in June. I remember using flash to take some photos of these due to the poor light on the dull days we were having then.
- Lime Hawk-moth - Coverdale 22.06.2024
Two of these pupae did not emerge this year but still look to be healthy so I am interested to see if they will emerge this coming spring. This would not be the first time that I have had moth pupae go through two winters before emerging and this is recognised to be a fairly common occurance in some species. I cannot help but wonder if it happens sometimes with some butterfly species too, I am sure I remember reading about it happening occasionally with reared Orange-tips but not sure if if it occurs in nature.
The only other Hawk-moth species I had was Elephant Hawk-moth, a couple of which appeared in late May and Mid June.
- Elephant Hawk-moth - Coverdale 28.05.2024
June and July saw most of the usual summer species appear in the trap but with one or two exceptions the numbers for most were down on previous years.
A couple of Black Arches turned up on the night of 29th July, an attractive species that I had only seen here for the first time in 2023. This is a common species further south and is another one that appears to be extending it's range northward in recent years.
- Black Arces - Coverdale 29.07.2024
Old Lady Moth numbers appear to be holding up well around my garden with a few coming to the trap again in 2024, sometimes two or three a night. It is sometimes said that these don't often come to light but it would appear that they respond better to actinic traps like mine ( I use a twin tube robinson with a 30w actinic paired with a 15w green synergetic tube) than they do to M V lamps.
- Old Lady Moth - Coverdale 29.07.2024
I also had the Ni moth pheromone lure out a few times in July and once again it proved to be a more effective Silver Y lure with 20 attracted to it. This compared with 47 in 2023 which was down to putting the lure out fewer times due to poor weather. In both years this was about four times the numbers that came to the light trap.
Despite the mostly less than favourable conditions, I still managed to get a Dewicks Plusia to the Ni Moth lure, just the one compared to 6 in 2023. I've still not seen anyone actually get a Ni Moth to this lure.
- Dewick's Plusia - Coverdale 29.07.2024
The last night that I ran the trap in 2024 was on the night of 27th August which produced a reasonable for here total of 195 moths of 33 species (inc. micros). These were all typical of what I would expect to see in late summer as shown in the list for the night shown below.
- Garden list 27.08.2024
The end of August and into September saw a number of named storms track across the country bringing high winds and thunderstorms and this pattern continued through most of the autumn.
By now I had become so erratic with my trapping that decided to knock it on the head for the rest of the year and look to start again in the new year, perhaps sometime in early February.
Bye for now,
Neil.
I found a massive pupa on the path at lunch today, right in the middle where it would get trodden on so I've but in the glass case in the cold store and hopefully it'll be a Hawk Moth 
