Look Back at 2019

2nd July 2019

Livox Quarry (Private site) 

Rare Onocera semirubella sighting in V35

Oncocera semirubella (Rosy-striped Knot-horn)

Continuing the lookback series of 2019 I had to post this visit to the Private site of Livox Quarry.
Kind permission was granted by the owner and overseen by the caretaker whilst I was there, so my thanks go to them for allowing me to look around.

A very warm start to day with little in the way of clouds around was a too good a opportunity to visit Livox Quarry. Arranging this visit beforehand and with the weather forecasters holding true for today, the day was set for plenty of hot sunshine.
Primarily I had set out to look for butterflies but took my sweep net and my camera along if I had the chance find moths whilst I disturbed the undergrowth.

With butterflies the count came to 66 of 6 species with Meadow Brown (36) and Small Skipper (14) the highest counts however the discovery of Marbled White (8) was a nice surprise. I always suspected it could set up residence here for several years on previous visits but never found it, so good news.
Whilst I was there a Thistle Ermine came into view on a grass stem.

Finishing with butterflies I had enough time to have a wander around the site for around 90 minutes.

The late afternoon was baking hot on the stony ground reaching over 28c.

A sweep across some Bird's-foot Trefoil in a couple of areas came up with 2 Six-belted Clearwing in the net, so it's doing well here.

 

As I thought my luck was in, my thoughts then turned to a specific area that I found the rare Oncocera semirubella a couple a years ago. Getting to the quite large area I decided to scour it systematically otherwise I'd loose track. Spending quite some time on it, I was beginning to think the original sighting in 2017 was a rare isolated case that luckily came my way.
Then with 20 minutes remaining of my allotted time here, something flew out in front of me and landed about 10 feet away on nearby 'seeding' grass stems. Approaching with extreme caution I suddenly realised that lightning does strike twice on the same spot.
It was Oncocera for sure and it was great to see it again. With this extra sighting exactly two years to the day from the original, this probably underlines the moths status as resident at Livox.