Tuesday 1 July 2014

End of the Month (Part 2)



I didn't get round to finishing off my cupboard of unidentified June moths in June. Here are the laggards, a day into the new month.

Heading the post is a debatable micro, probably Crassa unitella, albeit in an unusual resting position. Dave Wilton of the excellent Upper Thames Moths blog where my guesses are very carefully checked says:

You are almost certainly correct with the first one although its resting posture is not typical - unitella normally sticks its rear end in the air as shown in the micro field guide. The only vaguely similar moths are Crassa tinctella, which doesn't have such a contrast between head colour and wings as your example does, and Roeslerstammia erxlebella which does sit like your example but has a noticeably white area towards the tip of each antenna. The antennae are not particularly clear in your photograph but I can see no white. The second moth looks to me like a worn-out Cnephasia.

The second micro to which Dave refers is below and I don't think we can go any further with it.


Now I think the one below is a Mottled Rustic...


...and that the next two are different forms of the very variable Clouded Drab




The next one startled me but I cannot see what else it can be but a very clearly marked Heart and Dart, an immensely variable creature. I forgot to apply the Martin Skirrow 'forehead moustache' test (see several posts back), but I think I'm right. Below it is a more typical version of the moth, which is currently the most numerous visitor to the trap by a long stretch.



Now for a micro and this looks to me to be a Large Fruit Tree Tortrix, Archips podana, followed by its mucker, the Barred Fruit Tree Tortrix, Pandemis cerasama



The next, rather tatty character is an ancient Broken-barred Carpet, I think,  slumbering next to yet another Heart & Dart. The following one escapes me. Maybe some wandering passing expert may see it and kindly fill in the gap.




So to that Pinnocchio among moths, the Snout, after him or her, I believe we have a Heart and Club 




Back to the micro world for a strangely pallid Bee Moth, and then an equally ghostly but rather more graceful Silver-ground Carpet.



And finally though not very excitingly, Here is what I deem to be a Rustic. There. tis done but I won't pretend that I enjoyed it. Small brown and grey moths drive me demented when it comes to ID. But their tones and patterns are lovely to look at, carefully and in detail, all the same.



2 comments:

Tony Morris said...

Your well marked H+C's are typicsl of what I'm catching here. I would have thought your last moth is an Uncertain, but the two species are a bit of a whatsit without resorting to cutting them up.

Ray Walton said...

I will go along with Tony in his uncertainty of his "Uncertain"
Ray