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Well, the moths are not quite done and if the warmer weather persists for a while, who knows... After a few days of light snow things warmed up yesterday afternoon and there were 3 moths of two species in the light trap last night which included one new moth for the year. Actually, I had anticipated getting a, rather unglamourously named, Fall Cankerworm (Alsophila pometaria). This moth usually turns up after a cold spell in October. After asking Greg Pohl, I've given the micro moth, that I had on the 8th, a tentative id of Acleris nr/= bowmanana. Greg pointed out that it would take dissection or DNA barcoding to be sure of the id but at least I'm in the right area.
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There was just 1 micro moth in the trap last night and there is no chance of any moths tonight. Hopefully the weather will improve over the next few days. The photograph below was taken on the 17th June during one of my Waterton trips and was a new Sphinx species for me.
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After several days of empty traps I was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it to 200 backyard macro moths for the year. However, last night there were 3 moths in the trap. There was 1 micro moth, a Lucerne Moth (Nomophila nearctica) and 2 macros, a Pink-barred Sallow (Xanthia tatago) and an Ipsilon Dart (Agrotis ipsilon). The Ipsilon Dart (Agrotis ipsilon) is a new species for the year so that brings up the 200!! This is 57 more backyard macro moths than I recorded or identified last year. Sadly, the temperature has been fairly low all day today and is still only 5.8 so I'm not expecting much tonight.
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Not unsurprisingly, with overnight temperatures below freezing and the first snow since spring, there have been no moths for the last two nights. However, there were 10 moths of 5 species on Sunday night. Given the low temperatures I was quite surprised at this number. Nothing new for the year but there was an Alfalfa Looper (Autographa californica) that had a stigma in two parts. I think this is the first time I've seen an Alfalfa Looper that that doesn't have a one part stigma. I'm hoping that there may still be a few moths around as the weather improves over the weekend. Maybe a Fall Cankerworm Moth (Alsophila pometaria) will be my 200th macro.
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Due to my weekend away in Waterton I'm a little behind with my blog. This entry is for Friday 28th Sept. Moth numbers continue to be low but there were 2 new species for the year, Grote's Satyr Moth (Ufeus satyricus) and American Swordgrass Moth (Xylena nupera). One more needed to reach 200 backyard macro moths for the year! I'll blog some details later but needless to say, there were higher numbers of moths in Waterton. On Saturday morning I counted 32 moths of 13 species which included a few that I haven't yet identified.
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