Moths Found in South Wales on 6 August 2006

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We went visiting in South Wales, Ystrad Mynach (12 miles north of Cardiff), and took the moth trap with us.  A hot weekend again, with particularly hot nights.  The catches were enormous on both nights and included beetles and wasps as well as moths: probably the difference between barely farmed Welsh valley-sides and intensively arable-farmed, insecticide-ridden, Essex. Amongst the moths were samples of our favourite monsters - the Elephant Hawk-moth and a second brood of the Poplar Hawk-moth.  Thanks to Surreybirder and black52bird for help with the IDs.

The many worth photographing in the trap were:

• many lovely pink Blood-veins,

• several Pebble Hook-tips,

• several Antler Moths,

• a Peach Blossom,

• an extremely striking Gold Spot,

• several Dusky Thorns,

• a Nut-tree Tussock (shouldn't be surprising given the enormous number of Hazel trees in the area),

• a Lychnis,

• a Satin Lutestring (a very localised species, so not something we'd ever have caught in Saffron Walden),

• a Rosy Rustic,

• a rather blurred Strawberry Tortrix (see better picture later),

• a Dingy Footman,

• a second brood of the Lesser Swallow Prominent (very similar to the Swallow Prominent),

• a second brood of the Iron Prominent (apologies for the blurred picture),

• a rather lighter form of the Pebble Prominent in its second brood (previously seen here),

• a Brimstone Moth (previously pictured here),

• a Dwarf Cream Wave (previously seen here).

The remainder in the trap were:

• many Large Yellow Underwings, Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwings, Mother Of Pearls, Straw Dots, Copper Underwing Agg, Pinion-streaked Snouts, Common Rustics and Shuttle-shaped Darts,
• a few each of Silver Y, Ruby Tiger, Orange Swift, Large Nutmeg, Setacious Hebrew Character, Flame Shoulder, The Phoenix, Common Wainscot, Burnished Brass, Dun Bar, Chinese Character, and Scoparia pyrallela.