Catch-up blog No 3: Woodland and rhos...

Tuesday night (20/6) saw the same three actinics left out at two sites within Stradey Woods, and also at an overgrown `rhos-pasture` another site within the Stradey Estate, just west of Llanelli.
The rhos site, at the entrance to Cencoed-uchaf farm - now with much birch, willow and Scot`s pine invasion - is a shadow of its heyday some 30 years ago when marsh fritillaries could be found there. Here, on Tuesday, some two-dozen species were caught with striped wainscots, a double line, waved carpets, true lover`s-knots and the micro Exoteleia dodecella, the latter an associate of the invasive Scot`s pines.

                                                       Above: Exoteleia dodecella.

The second locality, at the edge of a clear-felled area overlooking Cwmbach hamlet adjoins mature conifers and oak-birch woodland (with other trees also nearby). Here, a richer assemblage of 40-odd species were in or around the actinic trap, with a beautiful snout, clay triple lines, coronets, double line and a grass emerald heading the macro cast and with Eudonia delunella and Piniphila bifasciana being the `best` micros. There are only three previous Carms. records of the latter, the last being in 2005 (presumably one of Jon`s Pembrey Forest records).

                                                              Above: grass emerald.

Above: two of the eight (the most that I`ve ever caught in one trap) clay triple lines, showing variation in striping. It is a beech-feeder as a caterpillar.

                                                       Above: Eudonia delunella.

                                                 Above: Piniphila bifasciana.

The last locality was on a path cutting through mixed woodland where a smaller number of species were noted including a surprise scarlet tiger (not a species that is associated with woodland), clay triple lines (just the one), waved carpet (3) and a small dotted buff.

Above: for all to see in its aposematic flamboyance, the only concession to wetland habitat being a minor rushy brook a few metres away.

                                                           Above: small dotted buff.