Stephanie and I went out again recently to watch bird-ringing at a station east of Hastings. The highlights were a bearded tit and a tiny, tiny firecrest.
But the team there also trap moths for recording and release. This gives valuable data about population health, new species and so on. We were really impressed by the recorder’s ability immediately to identify any one of well over 100 species that might have entered the light trap overnight. That’s real expertise, based on many years of experience.
There are reckoned to be over 2500 species of moth in the UK (compared to only about 60 butterfly species). Most of these moths will have both Latin names and English ones. Some of the English names are truly wonderful. Their origins are often lost in history. But who came up with the name “setaceous hebrew character”, or “the confused “, or “the snout”, to pick just a few moths at random from Complete British Insects by Michael Chinery?
The three photos here are of moths found in the trap last week. None of them is rare, but they are all classic autumn moths for this part of the country, each with their own distinctive English name: black rustic, angled shade, and green brindled crescent.
