Saturday, 18 May 2013

All Quiet on the Oxford Front

It's been pretty terrible as far as the mothing is concerned over the last couple of weeks due to the unseasonally chilly and windy weather. Finally on Wednesday the grey skies turned to blue and the sun came out. It was amazing how quickly this brought out the butterflies and I quickly had four different species in the garden within an hour: my resident Holly Blue and three whites: Large, Small and Orange-tip - the latter two being new for the year. 

 Large White

With the change in the weather I decided to start putting the moth trap out again but until last night I've not been catching a single thing. Finally last night I had a pug (Double-striped) loitering by the light for a while and in the morning there were two moths in the trap itself: an Early Grey and a Pale Mottled Willow, the latter being a year tick.


 Double-striped Pug

 Pale Mottled Willow


So it's all very quiet and slow-moving at present. I'm even resorting to including a Scarlet Tiger caterpillar on my year list just to keep things moving along - we're fortunately enough to have them breed in our garden.

Scarlet Tiger Caterpillar

So all in all, two new butterfly ticks and three moth ticks (I also had a Brown House Moth in my bedroom) keeps the list ticking over, albeit at a depressingly slow rate.

Latest Score = 23 Moths + 6 Butterflies = 29

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