Moth Update

Saturday, June 17th 2023

It was mentioned on the blog a few days ago that we were catching rather a lot of Common Swift moths. Charlie, our VC65 recorder sent this information. 'The total of 141 Common Swifts caught on our moth night is unusual. The biggest counts ever in the county all come from Spurn where it is really abundant, but away from Spurn, this is the biggest number ever caught in a trapping session in the county!'

Another piece of good and interesting news also came from Charlie. 'The piece of excellent news is that we have a goody. A rather nondescript Gelechiid I took home has turned out to be Carpatolechia notatella. It’s the eighth record for Yorkshire, the second this century and the first for VC65. It’s a goat-willow feeder.'

Double Square-spot lives up to its name. The caterpillars hibernate when quite small and feed in spring on various trees and shrubs. The flight season is during the months of June and July.

A moth whose wing pattern we rarely look at, is the Spectacle. It actually has lovely markings and quite distinctive.

But we identify it by its spectacles!

Last week Hayley found a Ruby Tiger moth walking around in the Scrapes. There is only one flight season in the North, from April to June, whilst down south their is a second in August and September.

She moved it out of harms way and it very conveniently turned on its side allowing its bright red abdomen to be on show.

Another was caught on Wednesday night but this time from the heath. You can see that its wings are almost transparent. When our records were scruntinised we found that this moth had not been seen since June 2018.

Our thanks go to Charlie and Alan who helped us to identify the moths on our moth morning and to Jill who scribed for us. Thank you very much.

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