15th August

Llandevenny surprise

A cooling, progressively damp evening here due to clearing skies, did produce a pleasant new surprise at Llandevenny near Magor.
This moth had me puzzled for quite some time as the markings did not fit my book to anything specific and trying to find it on-line proved just as difficult.
Martin Anthony helped me out in the end giving forth the name of Small Seraphim. I had encountered a Seraphim earlier in the year but this is a completely new moth species to me and I don't remember seeing it featured on the blog so thought I'd put it up here.

It apparently frequents damp woodland, hedgerows and marshy areas of which this area fits the bill. 
Sallow's are its food plant I'm led to believe which are quite frequent generally so it should be seen perhaps more often.
Martin's macro moth distribution maps as of December 2015 show only 7 squares shaded for this moth, so it seems it is not too often encountered.