A strange year, 1996 gave us the biggest total of new records for Cheshire for the last four years while 1997 produced by far the fewest number of new records since we started the present recording scheme; the total is in fact just 48 and that includes six 1996 records that reached me too late to be included in the 1996 report. That however is only half the story as in 1997 we did add three species to the County list and the season got off to a much better start in the early Spring than for some years. Another good feature was the emergence of another active new recorder. In July John Raines took a specimen of the Striped Wainscot in his trap, he had thought he had seen it in a previous year but had not been able to prove it; it is a reed-bed insect that I had thought should turn up somewhere in Cheshire, I don't think this one will be the last. Our second new species was the Privet Hawk, a single specimen being found in the evening by Eric Rudge when he heard it fluttering in the undergrowth! Surely this is the first species to be detected by ear rather than by eye. I might have suggested that it was either an escape or even a deliberate release from captive breeding but the fact that the specimen was recorded in the grounds of Liverpool University at Mossley Hill in 1996 increases the probability that the species may be established somewhere along the Mersey valley. Our third addition was even more unexpected, a Clifden Nonpareil was seen by Philip Thompson of Preston at Ness Gardens in daylight on the 1st September and reported to John Raines; I would probably have assumed this to be a release but for the fact that two specimens of this species were taken in different traps in the Shetlands on the 28th August, so there must have been a migration and ours could well have been a part of it. We welcomed a new recorder, Edwin Samuels, who is able to trap on a fairly open site on the South-wesy of Bromborough and he added no less than eleven species to the records for SJ37 including only the second Angle-striped Sallow to be seen in the County, he also took three species not seen in SJ37 since 1980. Stephen Hind and his colleagues in the North-east of the county have again made several significant records including several around Congleton in SJ85 which we have treated as a marginal square up to now. Our mid-week meetings and some follow-up visits produced several new records, mainly of Pugs taken as larvae, these are not the only good records of larvae as Ian Smith beat the larvae of the Dusky Lemon Sallow from Elm flowers in three squares in the South-west and two of these are new records. The attempt to get every 10km square in the County of Cheshire up to 250 species nearly succeeded; various visits to Brereton Heath, Bagmere and Goostrey Sidings gave us several records in Sj76, while the combined efforts of Eric Rudge with a trap in a local nursery garden and myself with sugar/wine strings in Park Moss Wood in October got SJ68 up to the target. Only in SJ56 did we fail, getting only two new species so that we need two more in 1998 and we have sites in mind for these. We are still sadly short of the other target of 100 species in all 31 squares but this probably requires night work as the commonest missing items are mostly Noctuids such as Dotted Clay in SJ37, Dot in SJ44 or Turnip in SJ86. For those who really like numbers, our total for the 31 squares has now passed 9,300 or an average of 300 species per square since 1961. We have recieved many useful 'update records' this year, but there are still many records not confirmed since 1980. C.I. Rutherford - (01625-583683) January 1998 The following new records were received for Vice-County 58 (Cheshire) in 1997: - an asterisk (*) indicates a new species for the county; the number at the extreme left is the Bradley & Fletcher code from their publication: "A Recorder's Log Book or Label List of British Butterflies and Moths" - J.D. Bradley and D.S. Fletcher (1979) :- |
Code | English Name |
10Km Squares (SJ)
|
161 | Leopard Moth |
SJ68
|
169 | Six-spot Burnet |
SJ99
|
1702 | Small Fan-footed Wave |
SJ28
|
1707 | Small Dusty Wave |
SJ68
|
1712 | Small Scallop |
SJ76
|
1720 | Gem |
SJ47
|
1746 | Shoulder Stripe |
SJ56
|
1754 | Phoenix |
SJ87
|
1756 | Northern Spinach |
SJ47
|
1797 | Autumnal Moth |
SJ47
|
1811 | Slender Pug |
SJ64
|
1821 | Valerian Pug |
SJ44
|
1827 | Freyer's Pug |
SJ46
|
1831 | Ling Pug |
SJ56
|
1844 | Ochreous Pug |
SJ28
|
1859 | Sloe Pug |
SJ44
|
1862 | Double-striped Pug |
SJ76
|
1870 | Chimney Sweeper |
SJ37
|
1876 | Small Yellow Wave |
SJ37
|
1893 | Tawny-barred Angle |
SJ68, 76
|
1912 | August Thorn |
SJ37
|
1933 | Scarce Umber |
SJ37
|
1936 | Waved Umber |
SJ46
|
1947 | Engrailed |
SJ37
|
1976* | Privet Hawk-moth |
SJ69
|
2035 | Round-winged Muslin |
SJ76
|
2080 | Square-spot Dart |
SJ37
|
2082 | Garden Dart |
SJ37
|
2177 | Hedge Rustic |
SJ37
|
2196* | Striped Wainscot |
SJ36
|
2240 | Blair's Shoulder-knot |
SJ99
|
2248 | Brindled Green |
SJ66
|
2256 | Satellite |
SJ68
|
2258 | Chestnut |
SJ37
|
2262 | Brick |
SJ68
|
2264 | Yellow-line Quaker |
SJ37, 68
|
2275 | Dusky Lemon Sallow |
SJ45, 54
|
2312 | Olive |
SJ68
|
2313 | Angle-striped Sallow |
SJ37
|
2325 | Crescent Striped |
SJ47
|
2333 | Large Nutmeg |
SJ47
|
2381 | Treble Lines |
SJ47
|
2391 | Silky Wainscot |
SJ64
|
2451* | Clifden Nonpareil |
SJ37
|
2462 | Mother Shipton |
SJ76
|
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