Blotched Emerald at last

 4th July 2021

Buckle Wood, Chapel Hill

Today the 4th of July was cloudy during the morning locally, however the afternoon saw cloud breaking up with some sunny intervals peering through before some late showers which were generally light. Temperatures were about what you expect for the time of year. The evening was partly cloudy for the moth 'fraternity' about to venture out, so ideal really. I managed to entice 78 moths of 44 species around the light trap whilst I was there with 4 'localised' moths amongst them. 

Male (smaller) and Female (larger) Gold Swift

They were Coronet, Clay Triple-lines, Gold Swift and Blotched Emerald. Gold Swift I had seen here in these woodlands before but it was a little more interesting this evening as 3 of the species were spotted, 2 males and a female. It wasn't too long before one of the males and the lone female took a bit of a fancy to each other, pairing up for quite some time.

The Blotched Emerald (pictured above) on the other hand was a moth I had never encountered before first hand, but had longed to see close up. Only a single specimen turned up but this was a quite sufficient to able me to go away happy.

On the micro front, there were new encounters too. Several Aleimma loeflingiana (Yellow Oak Button) pictured above, arrived from nearby Oaks- a new species for my records and here at this location too as of 2021. They seem fairly widespread according to the map.

Also this evening several Archips xylosteana (Variegated Golden Tortrix) (above) paid a visit. These too are reasonably common but appear to have a south and easterly bias on the map.

Finally two species of Coleophora caught my eye, one being a sooty grey and another having a striped flank. These are notoriously difficult too identify visually occasionally having several potential candidate species. Tonight one would have to resort to dissection I'm afraid to isolate both species.

The darker one turned out to be Coleophora laricella (Larch Case-bearer) which feeds on the needles of Larch trees. This sighting didn't fit this site at first but I then realised a whole hosts of trees are not far away so a wanderer of a few hundred yards or so.

The second one with striped flank, was Coleophora follicularis (Agrimony Case-bearer) pictured above, which fits very well along here with Hemp Agrimony plants.