Capturing Old Ladies

We've had a succession of Old Lady moths in the trap over the last week or so, which led to an odd conversation with my nine-year-old while walking down the street recently: we were discussing putting Old Ladies in pots and photographing them, which could have sounded suspicious.


Old Lady, 11th August

This culminated in a total of six of them in the trap on 27th August, which was quite a striking sight. Apart from that, there is beginning to be an autumnal feel to the moths we're catching - the first few Centre-barred Sallows have shown up - although numbers have remained very healthy, topping 300 individuals a couple of times and usually over 50 species for the last week. We've continued to enjoy spectacular individuals, such as a couple of Red Underwings and a substantial second generation of Poplar Hawkmoths, but also entirely new species to the garden - these including Feathered Gothic and Lesser Treble-bar.


Lesser Treble-bar, 21st August

Feathered Gothic, 26th August

That said, the continuing good weather has also led to some additions to the butterfly list for the year, with Common Blue and Green-veined White sighted in the last couple of days. Still, it's moths that are providing the main momentum for the Garden Moth Challenge, and with a total of 350 moths now reached for the year, we're wondering whether 400 is a reasonable target for 2013.