Rarely spotted Clavigesta purdeyi found at new site for the Vice County

 9th August 2021

Coed Golley, Trellech

A series of hot days this August prompted me to explore an area on top of the 'Trellech ridge'. The day was a dry one and became very hot into afternoon topping over 26c in my home town. This site though would have been slightly cooler I would have thought, and prone to the weather and breezes upon exposure, but upon getting there I was pleasantly surprised to find it still very warm and not disturbed, plus fairly calm.

Despite clear spells developing it remained fairly warm into the evening period. After setting up and running the trap I found another issue to content with - some bats. I nearly gave up trying here thinking that quite a few of my potential catch were being taking away, but I managed to ward them off enough to obtain a reasonable return this high up on the ridge. 92 moths of 34 made an appearence with 5 'Localised' and one Immigrant macro moth.

Not huge numbers of any species in particular but Dingy Footman led the way with 15 and Lesser Swallow Prominant with 9 came next. The Immigrant was a Dark Sword-grass of note.

Two nice surprises were two micro's those being Sallow Kitten and -believe it of not- my first ever recording Six-striped Rustic! (Both photographed above). Both species are fairly widespread in Vice County 35 according to the maps.

For the micro's two quite important species were registered here those being Oxypterix atrella (Two-spotted Neb) (above) formally Eulamprotes, with a name change occurring in January 2020. Fornally this had only 2 records prior to 2017 but since then, a small surge in discoveries have seen at least another 7 locations placed on the map including this one, pending any other records to add. 

 A seemingly rarely recorded for the county, Clavigesta purdeyi (Pine Leaf-mining Moth) (Pictured above) turned up this evening. Only two records exist according to the database up to 2020 both from 2016 at two different locations. This would constituent a third I believe, so warding off the bats was definitely worth it. The larvae of this species bore into pine needles and then hibernate in the mine emerging the following year on new shoots.