A late rockabilly turn up

Last night looked good for moths, much warmer, cloud cover and the odd light shower. So I was righteously gutted when I checked the trap early doors to find three moths of three species. Fair enough two were new for the year: Pine Beauty and Yellow-barred Brindle. But hardly worth the cost of running the trap!

A few hours later and I'm getting ready for the weekly supermarket shop when my youngest son - he of the natural history interest - says 'Dad, look. Big moth'. and lo and behold a male Puss Moth was sat tucked out of the way on the side of the house.

A more thorough inspection of the nooks and crannies yield, a Bright-Line Brown-eye, a Swallow Prominent, a Pale Mottled Willow and best of all a Mullein with it's rockabilly hairdo. A new moth for the garden.

Success snatched from the jaws of defeat - all thanks to the ankle biter.

A slow start

It's been a long, slow start to 2015. Moth numbers have been low, with 17 being the highest number of individuals in a catch. The majority have been Orthosia with a fair number of Early Grey thrown in for good measure.

The last week saw a couple of nights with higher temperatures and cloud cover, and although the trap was pretty sparse I did manage to pot a few moths from around the trap in the early evening.

Best of these were Streamer (with only one previous record) and Chinese Character, which is a new record for the garden (only the 2nd year at this location so still getting lots of additions).

Also had a Nicrophorus humator beetle one night, but it met an unfortunate end as it had jammed itself in a back door crevice and was only discovered on opening, as it fell out in pieces.....

Streamer 

Chinese Character

My first woodlouse...or is it?

Well I say my first woodlouse, but in all honesty I've seen hundreds of the things it's just that I've never got round to trying to identifying one to species.

So while laying a hedge and moving some bricks in the garden today I decided to pot a couple I found and sat down with a copy of the AIDGAP Woodlice book by Hopkins.

Unsurprisingly, it keyed out as the rather common Oniscus asellus but it's a new one for me and a new record for the garden.

So apparently only 36 species to go on this particular bit of the crustacean list. Except looking back into the deep and distant past I remember seeing Common Sea Slaters Ligia oceanica which means a bonus tick and thus only 35 to go....

There were a few other bits and pieces kicking about under the rubble.

Having only identified Black Snail Beetle Silpha atrata at the end of 2014, I found quite a few of them wintering under bricks with various other invertebrates.

New for the year were a couple of Brown Garden Snails Cornu asperum and several of these slugs which i think are Limax maximus but happy to be corrected if not.