Mothing - a quick overview of 2014

So 2014, was my return to mothing since moving 3 years ago to a village just north of Cambridge. The village is on the edge of the fens and I had high hopes for my little skinner trap, with its actinic bulb.

Pine Hawkmoth

The garden is about acre with a mix of open grass, borders, some mature trees and a small orchard. The surrounding land is garden and open pasture and arable.

My species total ended up being 226 for the year and I have to admit to being disappointed with this. Numbers were never huge and there seemed to be an almost complete lack of micros and pugs.

I caught some great moths such as Goat Moth

but there were lots of common stuff missing. I guess as a first full year of trapping at this site this now becomes the baseline for future years, but I would have expected to be starting from 300+.

I suppose best/rarest moth of the year was a Scarce Silver Y which appears to be only the 3rd of 4th for the county

Scarce Silver Y

But the year finished with the looker that is a Merveille de Jour, which are always a joy to catch.

One species which was new to me was The Wormwood

The NBN map shows a scattered distribution and I now realise that I've no idea what Wormwood (the plant) looks like so need to check that out to see if I can find any nearby.

So all in all, an interesting start to mothing here and it will be interesting to see how things progress over 2015.