You’ll be surprised what you can find if you stick a light in a box and leave it outside overnight. Even in the middle of greyest West London you can turn up pearls, tigers and hearts.
Jersey Tiger f. lutescens (left) and the standard form of Jersey Tiger.
Here are our hauls over three nights:
29/07/2014
Riband Wave f. remutata x1
Jersey Tiger x3
Codling Moth x2
Light Brown Apple Moth x2
Least Carpet x1
Straw Dot x4
Bright-line brown-eye x1
Uncertain x1
Camararia ohridella (Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner) x2
Common Rustic/Lesser Common Rustic agg. x2
Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing x1
Mother of Pearl x1
Cydia splendana x1
22/07/2014
Codling Moth x1
Light Brown Apple Moth x9
Camararia ohridella x1
Heart & Dart x2
Least Carpet x1
Light Arches x1
Crassa unitella x1
Scoparia sp. x1 (probably Eudonia mercurella - a particularly dark scoparid with a whitish 'x' mark in the trailing corner of the forewing)
Caloptilia sp. x1
Cydia splendana x1
13/07/2014
Chrysoteuchia culmella x5
Epiphyas postvittana (Light Brown Apple Moth) x7
Ruby Tiger x1
Camararia ohridella (Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner) x4
Pleuroptya ruralis (Mother of Pearl) x1
Dark Arches x1
Endotricha flammealis x1
Plutella xylostella (Diamond-back Moth) x1
Bucculatrix thoracella x1)
Scoparia sp. x1
Ruby Tiger
Beyond identification, I’m finding increasing enjoyment in the names of moths: the overly cautious Uncertain, the double hyphens of Bright-line Brown-eye and the apparently oxymoronic Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing are among my favourites.
/SR