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

Friday, 14 August 2026

Some lovely variety

Monday night was a cooler one of late, with lows of 12 degrees, but because it had been fairly mild during the day at 25 degrees and there was little wind, it was certainly worth staying up late potting up anything interesting.
3 new species were added to the year list, 1 macro & 2 micros.
 
Square-spotted Clay was the new macro, a really nice clean specimen with rich purplish shades intersected with dark shadowy windows. 
 
There was also an interesting smart Coleophora that I potted up early morning. Under a hand lens and a few photos later reveal it to be either discordella or saturatella.
I am currently favouring discordella as the other one feeds strictly on Broom, and there is very little if any around here, but maybe it got blown in from the Brecks? Who knows. Either way it'll be a flipping good record (Just 1 previous county record of saturatella and no county records of discordella).
Moth retained for further analysis.
 
Another moth that I have retained was a Phyllonorycter, which superficially looks good for cerasicolella.
 
Some returning species of my favourite genus, the Caloptilias were most welcome, including a right poser of a Caloptilia cuculipennella.
 
At time of writing we are set for a welcome change of weather, with hopefully some rain.
 
 
Moth garden list for 2026 stands at 650 species 
 
10/08/26 - Back Garden - Fordham - East Cambridgeshire - Actinic Trap
 
Macro Moths

Square-spotted Clay 1 [NFY]
 
Micro Moths

Epinotia immundana 1 [NFY]
Ypsolopha sequella 1 [NFY] 
 
Ypsolopha sequella

Caloptilia cuculipennella

Coleophora discordella/saturatella

Epinotia immundana

Phyllonorycter cerasicolella maybe

Square-spotted Clay

 
Posted by Bennyboymothman at 19:55