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

Monday, 14 July 2025

Hornet Moth!

I had another excellent catch on the 4th of July.

Rewind to the daytime, and when I got home from work, I did the lure bucket trap rounds and saw a large yellow moth buzzing around inside one of them. It was to be a garden first Hornet Moth (In the initial excitment I mis-identified it as a Lunar).
An excellent garden record and the 9th Clearwing species to be recorded in my garden, even better was that overnight I had two Hornets arrive at my trap, so it was nice to pop them side by side, showing how different they really are.
 
A year first Engrailed ended up on the bottom of my shoe sadly, i'm usually so careful walking around the patio! It was a moth I didn't get at all last year, and thought I might miss out on one this year (As they are a more prolific species in Spring generally). 
 
Best macro moth overnight was a really pale Garden Dart. It certainly got the heart beating for something a bit rarer, but still.. it is an uncommon moth here. 
Backed up by a cracking form of Cloaked Minor for a year first and the rather large and again scarce Phoenix, with just one previous garden record in 2023.
 
On the tiddler front, a scale perfect Acleris aspersana was the best, with another moth I missed in the spring, the second brood of Argyrotaenia ljungiana.
 
10 new species was very good indeed.
 
The warm spell continued into early July.
 

Moth garden list for 2025 stands at 534 species

04/07/25 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap

Macro Moths

Cloaked Minor 1 [NFY]
Engrailed 1 [NFY]
Garden Dart 1 [NFY]
Hornet Moth 1 [NFG]
Phoenix 1 [NFY]
Small Fan-footed Wave 1 [NFY]

Micro Moths

Acleris aspersana 1 [NFY]
Argyresthia goedartella 2 [NFY]
Argyrotaenia ljungiana 1 [NFY]
Blastobasis adustella 1 [NFY]

Small Fan-footed Wave

Acleris aspersana

Acompsia cinerella

Argyrotaenia ljungiana

Cloaked Minor

Garden Dart

Hornet Moth

Hornet Moth and Hornet

Phoenix

Sallow Kitten

 

Posted by Bennyboymothman at 21:03