Welcome

Hello and welcome to my moth Blog. I now reside in a small village in East Cambridgeshire called Fordham. My Blog's aim is to promote and encourage others to participate in the wonderful hobby that is Moth-trapping.
Moth records are vital for building a picture of our ecosystem around us, as they really are the bottom of the food chain. They are an excellent early indicator of how healthy a habitat is. I openly encourage people to share their findings via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
So why do we do it? well for some people it is to get an insight into the world of Moths, for others it is to build a list of species much like 'Twitching' in the Bird world. The reason I do it....you just never know what you might find when you open up that trap! I hope to show what different species inhabit Cambridgeshire and neighbouring counties.
On this Blog you will find up-to-date records and pictures.
I run a trap regularly in my garden and also enjoy doing field trips to various localities over several different counties.
Please also check out the links in the sidebar to the right for other people's Blogs and informative Websites.
Thanks for looking and happy Mothing!

KEY

NFY = New Species For The Year
NFG = New Species For The Garden
NEW! = New Species For My Records

Any Species highlighted in RED signifies a totally new species for my records.

If you have any questions or enquiries then please feel free to email me, I have now removed commenting as the bots were starting to appear
Contact Email : bensale@rocketmail.com

My Latest Notables and Rarities

Sunday, 6 July 2025

A warm end to June '25

It was an incredible warm spell that we experienced towards the end of the month, with countless days above 25 degrees and warm nights, and not always cloudy either.

On the 25th it was rinse and repeat, with a healthy catch once more, too many to list because of commitments, so only new species potted up, photographed and recorded.

A battered Clancy's Rustic turned up, a year first but probably not a primary migrant despite the southerly airflow. Another tatty moth and barely alive sadly, was a garden first Grass Rivulet. Certainly a bit of a wanderer.

Early moths continued to surprise, with my earliest garden record of Mouse Moth, subsequent days revealed this wasn't an anomaly as I recorded several more. This is 7 days earlier than my previous earliest record (And even that was an early reccord, and my only June record at the time). 

Just a duo of new micros were noted, the common Coleophora vestianella, which feeds on Orache and what grows like weeds along the verges here, i've recorded the mines along the next road and paths in previous years.
The other was the distinct Cnephasia longana, elongated and rather plain looking.
 
The nights ahead were still very busy for moth activity.

Moth garden list for 2025 stands at 487 species

26/06/25 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Clancy's Rustic 1 [NFY]
Common Rustic 1 [NFY]
Grass Rivulet 1 [NFG]
Mouse Moth 1 [NFY]

Micro Moths

Cnephasia longana 1 [NFY]
Coleophora vestianella 1 [NFY]

Mouse Moth

Clancy's Rustic

Cnephasia longana

Coleophora vestianella

Common Rustic

Grass Rivulet

 

Posted by Bennyboymothman at 21:53