More moths

It's still early days in my moth career. Some are fairly easy to identify, but others can be much more troublesome due to:

• variations within species (size, colour, pattern)
  
• similarities between species
• wear
• changes in phenology due to warming

Much of the identification process relies on experience and repeated exposure to conflicting identifications: yesterday I read a post on UKmoths where five experts gave five different suggestions for one worn specimen.

Anyway, here are my recent discoveries, with varying degrees of confidence.

First, Northern Eggar - Lasiocampa quercus f. callunae:

The Northern Eggar/Oak Eggar complex is rather interesting: the life-cycle is either 1 year (mostly southern) or 2 year (Northern/Western), but the intermediate zone (English midlands/Welsh border) has populations that vary between 1 year and two years. I rather suspect we're seeing the intermediate stage of one species becoming two. There are, however, consistent variations in size and pattern between the two subspecies. I've chosen Northern Eggar for this one simply because that's what we have in Ireland, but the rear of the main yellow band is diffuse, which ties in perfectly. It should be noted that these are day-flying moths and can often be confused in flight with larger butterflies, especially Dark Green Fritillary.

Next, Garden Carpet - Xanthorhoe fluctuata. Identification mostly based on the 3 wing patches, the largest of which fades away. Thorax and abdomen colours look good, too.

I'm a bit less confident of this one. Flounced Rustic - Luperina testacea. But I love the common name.

Maybe a bit more confident of this Shaded Broad-bar - Scotopteryx chenopodiata.


All new to me, but I'll wait for the dust to settle before I add them to my species list.

Moths and leaves

I was up in the deforested heath looking at willows for signs of bud-break and spotted this caterpillar on a bush. Turns out it's the Northern Eggar - Lasiocampa quercus f. callunae. Specimen about 3 cm. long:


This is an interesting species (or species complex). The southern populations feed on Oak and have a one-year lifecycle. Northern and western populations feed on heather and willow and have a two-year lifecycle. Populations in the English midlands vary between one year and two year cycles.

I did find a few willows in bud-break:


And also a single specimen of Alder:


And with catkins:


One of the groups I'll be studying closely this year is leaf-miners. I've previously tended to be a bit cavalier in my leaf-miner hunting, but this year I'm going to be more organised, with target species and timescales all planned in advance.