In the pines

I cranked the moth trap up last night and set it up down the end of the garden. It was a much milder evening than we have had of late and the cloud cover came in at sunset and there was even a very light drizzle when I first checked on it.

Moths numbers were up and I recorded 26 species. Not a huge number but far better than recent trapping sessions. New for both the garden and for me was this rather subtly beautiful tortrix, Cydia conicolona. It's food plant is Scot's and Corsican Pine. I'm not sure where the nearest of those trees are. I do have a pine in the garden but not quite sure of the species. Maybe this moth has slightly broader tastes.

I also had two new species of beetle in the trap, which was pretty good going. The first was another pine feeder and the second new species of Ptinid in a week. Dryophilus pusillus. Adults of this species appear from about now until the late summer and are associated with various conifer trees, especially spruce, pine and larch. The apparently prefer mature conifer woodland of which there is none around here. They are mostly active at night and are attracted to light such as moth traps. So this little lady may have come a fair way or this species may be less dependent on mature stands of trees than previously thought.

At only 1.9mm this was tough to photograph given my set up so apologies for the abysmal pics. Amazing big eyes though.

The other new beetle was one that I have looked for, checking lots of its commoner cousin Dasytes aeratus. How ever this one is D. plumbeus. It has a narrower pronotum, and the tibiae, tarsi and front femora are partly yellow.

It was also noticeably smaller than the D. aeratus that I have seen this week on hawthorns, plus the eyes seem larger.

This week's night time temperatures are building so there's a chance of more stuff turning up. Obvious inspiration for the blog post today.