GMS News

Spring 2014

Weeks 1-9

Contents Editorial Norman Lowe 1 Overview GMS 2014 1st Quarter Angus Tyner 2 Lepidopteran Crossword 5 Nonconformist 12 How we did in Wales Norman Lowe 13 Tailpiece Norman Lowe 16 GMS sponsors 16

Editorial – Norman Lowe

We are a bit short of material this quarter as you can see, so I’ve padded it out again with an article on how things are going in Wales. Meanwhile, Heather Young has asked me to pass on the following news items. Please respond to your area co-ordinator, or to me at [email protected] if you can help us.

Annual Conference

We are still looking for someone to volunteer to organise the 2015 GMS conference – it does not have to be held somewhere it has been before; anyone from any region can put themselves forward for this task! All we need is a village hall or similar venue for up to 100 people, a few speakers and some tea and coffee. MapMate have kindly agreed to sponsor the event again, but it cannot go ahead if no-one is prepared to take on the organisation.

Regional Coordinator changes

Firstly, we would like to extend a warm welcome to Ade Jupp, now in position as coordinator for Kent. Ade replaces David James who has retired – we wish him well, and hope he still has time to look at a few moths now and again.

Secondly, following the sad passing of Len Britton after a short illness, we are still looking for a new regional coordinator for East England. This job can be shared between a few people if no one wants to take on the full area (as is the case in the West Midlands and South-East). I have a potential volunteer for Essex, but really need one or two more offers! While I can continue to send out material and collect recording forms for the region myself, I cannot give the sort of personal service our recorders deserve (and have no local knowledge of the area or the moths in that part of the country).

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Overview GMS 2014 1st Quarter – Angus Tyner

After the very poor first quarter of last year, 2013 due to the unseasonably cold conditions, the first quarter of 2014 returned to what seemed like normality. The temperature during March and April was a little above average in all regions. I can’t generalise the rainfall as there was big variations between the regions. With regard to sunshine March was generally sunny but this was somewhat balanced out by the duller than average April. So how did this translate to numbers of moths?

It was many times better than last year, but we knew this already! But it’s interesting to see that the numbers did not match the 3 previous years

A look at the weekly graph, week one was cold with 2/3rds of traps empty. It was much better for the rest of the quarter. The peak of the Orthosia species was during weeks 5 & 6. This was during the warmest period. The temperature was reasonable for the last week, but this didn’t result in more moths, though the number of species did increase as early Summer species started to emerge. This can be seen in graphs later on.

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The following table ranks the top 20 species in order. Hebrew Character holds onto to the top spot, but only by a whisker from Common Quaker and the top 6 are the same as last year with some minor differences in order. However, further down the table, Oak Beauty and Brindled Beauty have climbed a few places whereas March Moth and Chestnut have dropped.

Since the numbers last year were very low, it seems more useful to compare the 2014 results with the mean of the last three years. With this in mind it wasn’t a bountiful quarter for many species, although Oak Beauty, Early Thorn and Brindled Beuaty showed quite large increases. Small Quaker was well down on the 3 year mean as was Twin-spotted Quaker. Bigger reductions were recorded for Shuttle-shaped Dart and Muslin Moth but it seems likely that this is due to a slightly later flight period this year.

GMS 2014 1st Quarter – 317 Gardens (core species only) Mean 2011- % Change (2011-13 Total per 13 vs. 11-13 position) garden Mean mean 1 (1) Hebrew Character 12029 37.9 38.5 -1% 2 (2) Common Quaker 11840 37.4 33.6 11% 3 (4) Clouded Drab 4818 15.2 13.8 10% 4 (3) Small Quaker 4006 12.6 26.7 -53% 5 (5) Early Grey 2361 7.4 5.8 29% 6 (6) Twin-spotted Quaker 701 2.2 4.5 -51% 7 (14) Oak Beauty 570 1.8 1.3 39% 8 (10) Early Thorn 558 1.8 1.4 26% 9 (13) Brindled Beauty 478 1.5 1.1 36% 10 (8) March moth 476 1.5 1.5 -1% 11 (7) Chestnut 459 1.4 2.1 -33% 12 (11) Double-striped Pug 387 1.2 1.3 -9% 13 (12) Powdered Quaker 382 1.2 1.1 6% 14 (16) Dotted Border 234 0.7 1 -27% 15 (9) Shuttle-shaped Dart 210 0.7 1.7 -61% 16(17) Shoulder Stripe 165 0.5 0.7 -25% 17 (19) Light Brown Apple Moth 151 0.5 0.8 -37% 18 (21) Twenty-plume Moth 123 0.4 0.5 -20% 19 (20) Satellite 123 0.4 0.4 -14% 20 (15) Muslin Moth 118 0.4 1.1 -66%

Abundance by region The next table breaks down this top 20 into regional values. The figures represent the mean number of moths per garden. The abbreviation for the regions are listed here

NW North West England SC Scotland NE North East England IR Ireland YH Yorkshire & Humberside EE East England WA Wales WM West Midlands EM East Midlands SW South West England SE South East England

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I’ve highlighted maximum numbers for a species in red and minimum in blue. Wales has the highest number of more than half the species. Could that be, perhaps, that weather conditions happened to be more favourable for moths in western Britain this year? Apart from Scotland, which usually shows lower numbers in spring, presumably due to lower temperatures, most of the minima were from regions in the east.

NW SC NE IR YH EE WA WM EM SW SE Number of gardens 36 17 12 26 10 25 33 45 32 48 33 Hebrew Character 27.3 25.1 23.1 53.2 20.3 25.9 61.8 33.1 17.1 46.6 24.7 Common Quaker 38 19.5 15.6 40.6 23 50.7 45 26.8 18.6 35.6 31.4 Clouded Drab 12.7 7.4 3.7 23.5 13.1 10 30.1 15.5 11.2 9.8 6.7 Small Quaker 10.7 1.7 2.1 3.1 13.2 17.2 26.5 13.6 5.5 11.3 10.2 Early Grey 4.8 0.8 2.9 8.3 4.4 9.3 10.6 6.9 5 8.5 7.5 Twin-spotted Quaker 1.9 0.4 0.4 2.3 0.4 1.6 6.7 1.4 0.7 2 1.5 Oak Beauty 0.8 0 0.3 1.4 0.3 1 5.6 1.9 0.6 1.7 2.2 Early Thorn 1 0.1 0.4 2.8 0.3 0.8 3.5 1.4 0.7 2.8 1.6 Brindled Beauty 0 0.2 0 0 0.1 0.2 8.4 2.3 0.2 0.8 1.3 March Moth 0.6 0.1 0.1 3.1 0.9 1.3 2.8 1.8 0.4 1.6 1.4 Chestnut 1 0.5 0.8 2.1 0.2 1.2 3.2 1.1 0.2 1.4 1.7 Double-striped Pug 0.8 0.1 0.3 2.7 0.1 1.2 1 0.7 1.1 1 2.2 Powdered Quaker 0.8 0.1 1.1 3.4 1.2 1 2.3 0.5 0.5 1.1 0.5 Dotted Border 0.3 0.1 0 0.9 0.1 0.9 2.6 0.4 0.1 1 0.2 Shuttle-shaped Dart 0.4 0 0 0 0 3.1 0.1 0.6 0.4 0.4 1.4 Shoulder Stripe 0 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 2.4 0.5 0 0.7 0.2 Light Brown Apple 0.3 0 0.1 0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.5 1.3 0.6 TwentyMoth -plume Moth 0.4 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.5 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.8 0.2 0.5 Satellite 0.5 0 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.4 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.6 Muslin Moth 0.1 0 0 0.1 0 0.8 0.2 0.2 0.3 1.0 0.6

The next tables describe the Top 10 in each region and it is interesting to see how similar they are. Hebrew Character and Common Quaker comfortably occupy the top two places in all regions. The first table shows how many times each species appears in a regional Top 10 and this shows that Clouded Drab, Small Quaker and Early Grey also feature in each region’s top 10 and in total only 22 species are covered.

Small Quaker 11 Double-striped Pug 4 Common Quaker 11 Powdered Quaker 3 Clouded Drab 11 Twenty-plume Moth 2 Hebrew Character 11 Brindled Beauty 2 Early Grey 11 Emmelina monodactyla 2 Twin-spotted Quaker 7 Shuttle-shaped Dart 1 Early Thorn 7 Nut-tree Tussock 1 Oak Beauty 6 Pine Beauty 1 Red Chestnut 6 Water Carpet 1 Chestnut 5 Mottled Grey 1 March Moth 5 White-shouldered House Moth 1

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The next table shows the full Top 10 in each region.

North West Mean Scotland Mean North East Mean Common Quaker 38 Hebrew Character 25.1 Hebrew Character 23.1 Hebrew Character 27.3 Common Quaker 19.5 Common Quaker 15.6 Clouded Drab 12.7 Clouded Drab 7.4 Clouded Drab 3.7 Small Quaker 10.7 Small Quaker 1.7 Early Grey 2.9 Early Grey 4.8 Mottled Grey 1.2 Small Quaker 2.1 Twin-spotted Quaker 1.9 Early Grey 0.8 Powdered Quaker 1.1 Red Chestnut 1.5 Red Chestnut 0.6 Chestnut 0.8 Chestnut 1 Chestnut 0.5 Red Chestnut 0.6 Early Thorn 1 Water Carpet 0.5 Early Thorn 0.4 Oak Beauty 0.8 Pine Beauty 0.4 Twin-spotted Quaker 0.4 Ireland Mean Yorkshire & Humber Mean East England Mean Hebrew Character 53.2 Common Quaker 23 Common Quaker 50.7 Common Quaker 40.6 Hebrew Character 20.3 Hebrew Character 25.9 Clouded Drab 23.5 Small Quaker 13.2 Small Quaker 17.2 Early Grey 8.3 Clouded Drab 13.1 Clouded Drab 10 Red Chestnut 3.8 Early Grey 4.4 Early Grey 9.3 Powdered Quaker 3.4 White-sh'dered House Moth 2.1 Shuttle-shaped Dart 3.1 Small Quaker 3.1 Powdered Quaker 1.2 Twin-spotted Quaker 1.6 March Moth 3.1 March Moth 0.9 March Moth 1.3 Early Thorn 2.8 Red Chestnut 0.8 Emmelina monodactyla 1.3 Double-striped Pug 2.7 Twenty-plume Moth 0.5 Double-striped Pug 1.2 Wales Mean West Midlands Mean East Midlands Mean Hebrew Character 61.8 Hebrew Character 33.1 Common Quaker 18.6 Common Quaker 45 Common Quaker 26.8 Hebrew Character 17.1 Clouded Drab 30.1 Clouded Drab 15.5 Clouded Drab 11.2 Small Quaker 26.5 Small Quaker 13.6 Small Quaker 5.5 Early Grey 10.6 Early Grey 6.9 Early Grey 5 Brindled Beauty 8.4 Brindled Beauty 2.3 Double-striped Pug 1.1 Twin-spotted Quaker 6.7 Oak Beauty 1.9 Twenty-plume Moth 0.8 Oak Beauty 5.6 March Moth 1.8 Early Thorn 0.7 Red Chestnut 4.1 Early Thorn 1.4 Twin-spotted Quaker 0.7 Early Thorn 3.5 Twin-spotted Quaker 1.4 Oak Beauty 0.6 South West Mean South East Mean Hebrew Character 46.6 Common Quaker 31.4

Common Quaker 35.6 Hebrew Character 24.7

Small Quaker 11.3 Small Quaker 10.2

Clouded Drab 9.8 Early Grey 7.5

Early Grey 8.5 Clouded Drab 6.7

Early Thorn 2.8 Double-striped Pug 2.2

Twin-spotted Quaker 2 Oak Beauty 2.2

Oak Beauty 1.7 Nut-tree Tussock 1.8

March Moth 1.6 Chestnut 1.7

Chestnut 1.4 Emmelina monodactyla 1.7

It is interesting to see a plume moth, Emmelina monodactyla featuring in these tables, possibly for the first time?

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Graphs showing the average number of moths for each garden

. Almost all regions showed a similar pattern to the overall graph. A very poor first week with a peak in weeks 5 & 6. Welsh gardens recorded more moths than gardens elsewhere.

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Graphs showing the total number of species per garden

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Although the numbers of moths reduced after week 6, the number of species continued an upward trend in nearly all regions, as can be seen in the following charts.

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Lepidopteran Crossword No. 5 by Nonconformist

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

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14 15 16 17

18 19

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21 22 23

24 25 26

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28 29 30

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32 33

34 35 36 37 38

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Clues for Crossword No 5.

Across 1 Fantastic but not drepanidae. 10 A good food-source found in a gentleman’s privy. 11 An irate Cain able to associate with 21 across. 12 Small, possibly underwing, but even more abbreviated. 13 Ornithologically apparelled and found with arched architecture. 14 Banish Romeo and Juliet before finding this sailor’s item. 15 Resting place for Mr and Mrs Brown? 19 Edward indicated which group it was before he left. 20 Surely men soon take note of this prickly group. 21 Is this in the garden with Ruby and Piglet? 22 Black-eyed Susan tries to conceal this humble man-servant. 25 Dorothy and Edward provide the markings for several species. 27 Is Greta in Ian’s thoughts when looking for a new family member. 28 & 39a The entomologists description of this diminutive musical thief. 30 Handle this plant for a clean sweep. 31 Is this high-flying company just the place for 37a. 32 My local sparrows hope I trap a meal of these for them. 33 Nonconformist’s face is just the place for this moth.

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34 Carpets pining for a fair portion of the range. 36 Would an earth tremor move this aged person? 37 A regular unwelcome competitor for moth-trappers? 39 See 28a. 40 See 33d.

Down 1 A dark place for Chimney Sweepers. 2 To see this migrant I suggest that you open that carton Sir! 3d & 28d Top dentist goes west to join the panels or a friendly society member. 4 Young bracken loses it’s “ah” factor to provide a new habitat. 5 When my traps are emptied this little moth makes me wish to fill one again. 6 We asked Carole and Ernie to look out for this occasional visitor. 7 No kidding! Part of 14’s whole. 8 I think may-hap I knew it was a large moth. 9 Needed to find the answers to all these clues! 12 & 35d. I would advise you to try Mars rather than Kit-kat. 16 Specifically, not a rare gem, but a tiara vies to contain this beauty. 17 See 25a. 18 Almost overlooked micro but you have a sole slim chance of seeing it. 23 This moth would probably earn it’s stripes in the forces. 24 One of the little women stands up for this beauty. 25 Not a plain or white version of our 12d. 26 Top of the league, almost without a hitch. 28 See 3d 29 Oh dear! What sort of headgear is this? 31 Perhaps this moth came over with the Angle Shades, but without spectacles. 33 An all black adventive, perhaps! 35 See12d. 38d & 17d Some years ago this moth would possibly be the doll of the day.

How we did in Wales – Norman Lowe

Here are the spring results for the 2014 Garden Moth Scheme Cymru, Weeks 1-9. These are from 33 Welsh gardens, compared with 37 last year. As usual, I’ve put together a Top 20 based on the average number of moths of each species. In the first column I’ve put this year’s rankings with last year’s in brackets so you can see which have gone up in the charts and which have gone down. In terms of these rankings, there hasn’t been much movement this year, and all of the top 5 occupy the same positions as last year, these being the 4 common Orthosias and the Early Grey. There have been a few changes, however, and Brindled Beauty has gone up 4 places, March Moth has gone down 4 places and Dotted Border has gone down 6. But when you look at the mean numbers, all of the species were much more numerous this year compared with last.

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Mean per garden Rank Common Name Total 2014 2013 1(1) Hebrew Character 2038 61.8 16.4 2(2) Common Quaker 1485 45.0 6.2 3(3) Clouded Drab 994 30.1 5.6 4(4) Small Quaker 873 26.5 5.2 5(5) Early Grey 351 10.6 3.2 6(10) Brindled Beauty 277 8.4 1.3 7(9) Twin-spotted Quaker 222 6.7 1.5 8(6) Oak Beauty 184 5.6 1.9 9(11) Red Chestnut 136 4.1 1.0 10(13) Early Thorn 117 3.5 0.6 11(14) Chestnut 107 3.2 0.5 12(8) March Moth 94 2.8 1.6 13(7) Dotted Border 87 2.6 1.7 14(12) Shoulder Stripe 80 2.4 0.6 15(19=) Powdered Quaker 76 2.3 0.1 16(16) Mottled Grey 62 1.9 0.2 17(19=) Engrailed 42 1.3 0.1 18(19=) Double-striped Pug 34 1.0 0.1 19(19=) Streamer 32 1.0 0.1 20=(24=) Lunar Marbled Brown 13 0.4 0.03 20=(15) Satellite 13 0.4 0.2

As 2013 was such a poor year for spring species I haven’t included anything on % rises and falls. But as we now have 8 years’ data it seems more interesting than ever to look back to 2007 and I’ve put together the table below showing how each of the Top20 has done. I’ve highlighted the highest number for each species in green and the lowest number in red. Average per garden Common Name Total 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Hebrew Character 2038 61.76 16.43 63.03 100.34 70.69 46.10 26.50 58.11 Common Quaker 1485 45.00 6.16 23.38 74.59 45.52 34.68 19.12 75.72 Clouded Drab 994 30.12 5.62 21.59 41.72 32.55 18.55 10.62 20.89 Small Quaker 873 26.45 5.22 28.38 35.91 18.41 10.45 22.69 43.72 Early Grey 351 10.64 3.22 12.85 11.53 11.93 9.03 6.96 18.22 Brindled Beauty 277 8.39 1.27 1.97 7.97 7.14 4.58 2.92 6.00 Twin-spotted Quaker 222 6.73 1.54 12.46 14.50 7.69 3.94 2.65 8.33 Oak Beauty 184 5.58 1.95 2.31 2.66 3.69 3.77 2.81 5.72 Red Chestnut 136 4.12 1.00 2.69 5.19 3.83 3.61 3.08 10.22 Early Thorn 117 3.55 0.62 2.15 2.81 2.17 4.94 3.19 3.72 Chestnut 107 3.24 0.54 4.38 5.00 6.52 2.26 1.42 2.39 March Moth 94 2.85 1.62 1.56 2.22 3.45 1.94 1.19 4.83 Dotted Border 87 2.64 1.68 2.21 2.31 4.14 1.48 1.35 3.94 Shoulder Stripe 80 2.42 0.59 2.85 4.13 3.31 1.42 4.19 6.78 Powdered Quaker 76 2.30 0.08 1.31 3.38 0.72 0.65 0.69 0.94 Mottled Grey 62 1.88 0.22 1.15 3.97 4.38 3.03 N/A N/A Engrailed 42 1.27 0.08 0.79 1.38 0.55 0.65 0.31 1.00 Double-striped Pug 34 1.03 0.08 0.67 1.53 0.69 1.29 1.62 6.89 Streamer 32 0.97 0.08 0.79 2.84 1.52 1.55 0.88 2.17 Lunar Marbled Brown 13 0.39 0.03 0.08 1.81 0.17 N/A N/A N/A Satellite 13 0.39 0.24 0.64 0.59 0.79 0.26 0.19 0.06

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Not surprisingly, for most species 2013 was the worst year of the 8, apart from March Moth, Dotted Border and Satellite. This year’s results show that 2014 was the best for just one species, Brindled Beauty, but for all the others it was a fairly “average” year.

I also thought it might be a good idea to plot some of these numbers on charts for some groups of species. Since the Top 4, Hebrew Character, Common Quaker, Clouded Drab and Small Quaker, are all Orthosias, do the numbers rise and fall together? The answer as shown by the first chart, is yes they do! All 4 show a peak in 2011 and troughs in 2008 and 2014 although there are variations between one species and another.

A group of moths that are less closely related to each other are the 5 geometers most numerous in the table, the Brindled Beauty, Oak Beauty, Early Thorn, March Moth and

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Dotted Border. Apart from the Brindled Beauty these seem to vary less in numbers from year to year than the Orthosias. Also, and again apart from the Brindled Beauty, they don’t show a peak in 2011 but instead have high numbers in 2007 and 2014, although Early Thorn shows this less well than the others.

Tailpiece – Norman Lowe

As I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter we are a bit short of contributors’ material this quarter, so please consider sending me material to make future issues more interesting. Just drop an email at any time to [email protected] . On a personal note, I’m finding my own time to be in short supply for both family and professional reasons, so please bear with me for any errors or omissions.

GMS Sponsors

We were very thankful for the financial assistance from the following organisations; please consider using our sponsors for any purchases you need to make!

Atropos Books Online book store and publication of Atropos, the journal for butterfly, moth and dragonfly enthusiasts. Special offers available on the website. www.atroposbooks.co.uk The Boat House, Church Cove, Lizard, Cornwall, TR12 7PH 01326 290287 [email protected]

Focus Optics Moth trapping equipment, binoculars, telescopes and much more. www.focusoptics.eu Church Lane, Corley, Coventry, CV7 8BA 01676 542476/540501 [email protected]

MapMate is a biological recording system designed for enthusiasts to record, map, analyse and share their natural history sightings. It was originally developed for moth recording and has now expanded to include most of the UK fauna and flora. It is being used by some 20,000 individuals and institutions in the UK including very large groups like the RSPB and the Botanical Society of the British Isles. www.mapmate.co.uk

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The GMS has its own Facebook page where you can post comments, check out what people are seeing across the country, and generally keep in touch with like-minded moth enthusiasts. https://www.facebook.com/GardenMothScheme

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