How common do you think common actually is? Many might be forgiven for believing it is something frequently seen or encountered. Clearly entomologists will disagree and tell us that, in the case of moths, common means a species which has been recorded in over 300 10km squares since 1 January 1960 – a definition now clearly in need of an update in my opinion.
I was reminded of this recently when Tim W found an Oak Eggar moth indoors, one of those species considered “common”. This really is a special moth, large and sexy, at least as moths go! He released it outdoors only to see it immediately return inside. Until then I had only recorded it 6 times since 2009 – and then something quite extraordinary happened – five Oak Eggars turned up one night, two large females with three males clearly following their pheromone trails. All were released safely.
This year there has been a problem with the non-emergence of certain moth species. Many hatch out in two generations and this year has been notable in that many have missed the early emergence and are now only showing up. I had begun to attribute this to low light levels and unseasonably low overnight temperatures. So, I was really interested to study Roger’s weather stats for June and July which show average overnight lows have been almost two degrees lower than normal. Summer moths definitely prefer warmth and will not fly when it is too cold.
My mothing year to date has been a real roller coaster. From the extreme lows at the end of June, we hit an unprecedented high on 18 July, one of the hottest nights of the year, when 115 species were recorded with a total count in the high hundreds. This did not last long, as much cooler nights followed and then just as things were picking up again we had several more really cold nights in early August. In the short term there is probably little to worry about, as insects have a remarkable ability to bounce back from poor breeding years.
One big problem has been rescuing young birds from the greenhouses. They are tempted in by all those insects, rich pickings indeed, and so they certainly resent me ushering them outside. There has been a family of little owls around the garden for several weeks learning how to exist in the wild. Occasionally I am treated to a late night sight of one or two of them, always a great thrill. At least one of them loves sitting in our dead tree.
Paul 841696
