Moth News 2005

A late start to the moth page this year. The trap has only been out once so far in June with little of note. Central Lowestoft clearly isn't the best of sites!

For the third year running the same gardens in St. Olaves and Kessingland have hosted Hummingbird Hawk-moths. The former from June 14th to July 5th at least and at the latter site from June 24th to July 15th at least. On the 5th two were present together.

Hummingbird Hawk-moth - Kessingland - July 2005 ©Andrew Easton

The very smart Elephant Hawk-moth pictured below was found at Kessingland on June 25th.

Elephant Hawk-moth - Kessingland - June 2005 ©Andrew Easton

LOUND WATERWORKS - 14th JULY

On the 14th Matthew Deans kindly came up from south Suffolk with two of his traps to visit Lound Waterworks and obtain some records for this under recorded 10 kilometre square in the north-east corner of Suffolk.

At least 88 species were recorded, with some micro moths to be hopefully confirmed later.

Some highlight were : Leopard Moth (photo below), Limnaecia phragmitella, Parapoynx stagnata, Oak Eggar, Round-winged Muslin and Plain Golden Y.

One of our personal favourites was the Buff Arches a very strikingly patterned moth as can be seen in the photo below.

Buff Arches - Lound Waterworks - July 2005 ©Andrew Easton

(left) Pine Hawk-moth (right) Leopard Moth - Lound Waterworks - July 2005 ©Andrew Easton

LOWESTOFT - 15th JULY

Emboldened by the success the previous night I set up my trap in the garden and managed 17 species, including Swallow-tailed Moth, Lime-speck Pug and Buff Ermine. The most numerous species by far was Brown-tail with at least 10 around the trap vicinity. Not really much of surprise as there had been large numbers of their caterpillars in central Lowestoft earlier in the year.

(Left) Lime-speck Pug (right) Bright-line Brown-eye - Lowestoft - July 2005 ©Andrew Easton

KESSINGLAND - 21st JULY

Tony Prichard (Suffolk County Moth Recorder) and Matthew Deans visited to gain records for the area around the reedbed and neighbouring parish council land by the sewage works.

They ran four traps and recorded around 120 species. Highlights included three scarce species the Shaded Fan-foot, Kent Black Arches and Muslin Footman.

Though for us the larger and showier species such as the Privet Hawk-moth (photo below) and Oak Eggar were a real treat to see close up as well.

Kessingland turned up another Hummingbird Hawk-moths on August 29th, and we can't resist including another photo of one (see below) as they are such fascinating creatures.

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