Thursday, 25 June 2020

Wider Countryside Butterfly Count

Earlier today we did the Tetrad SE0430 for WCBS. Its the same survey area as the BTO Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) covering parts of Cold Edge and Ovenden Moor
We managed not many species but enjoyed what we found in the survey area

Large Skipper x 13
Small Tortoiseshell x 32
Small Heath x 18
Small White x 4
Meadow Brown x 8
Large White x 1
Red Admiral x 6 (most of these were flying directly across Ovenden Moor >S. There would likely have been many more had we stayed but the survey also involves a time factor.

Moths included single Yellow Shell, SilverY and a Cinnabar.

We also managed to find four of these Burnet Moths on Geraniums.
I suspect these are Narrow-bordered Five-spot Burnet ( ssp latomarginata) as opposed to Five-spot (trifolii). ??
This latter one, according to Yorkshire Moths is a southern and coastal species.
Also Norfolk Moths mentions they are inseparable other than Gen-det

Yorkshire Moths quotes on the Narrow-bordered.....
2012 (CHF): Widespread across the county in flowery grassland. This species seems to have increased since 1989 and numbers are currently stable. We often receive records of Five-spot Burnet but this has never been reliably recorded in the county and further examination shows that these are all Narrow-bordered.

Anyone aware of updates since then ? or do we record as aggregate species ?


1 comment:

AndyC said...

Small and large Shipper , Meadow Brown and Ringlet were abundant at Cromwell today , also a few Red Admiral , Large WHite , Comma and Small Tortoiseshell ......