Cheshire Macro-Moth Papers - Paper 7

Entomology can be like crime detection, every clue must be taken on board and assessed even though it is not relevant to the problem in hand at the moment.

Last Spring (1993) I was following a friend's car to a meeting pace and as we went along a lane, only about three miles from home, but one I don't often use, I noticed a Blackthorn thicket in a corner of a field close to the road. A month later when the Blackthorn was in flower, I was back there with the beating tray and soon had the larva of the Sloe Pug (Chloroclystis chloerata Mab.) thus adding a species to the list for my home 10Km square.

A month later I was south of Malpas, searching for Broom in SJ44 in the hope of beating out larvae of the Streak (Chesias legatella D.&S.) as explained in my note on 'Old Fashioned Methods' (see Paper-1). I found a few young Broom bushes on a hillside but they had evidently not been there long enough for the Streaks to have found them. I did however, notice several Small Yellow Underwings (Panemeria tenebrata Scop.) flying in the sunshine and was quite surprised to find this was not new to that square but when I looked it up I noticed that it was absent from my home square (SJ87). I have been assessing the wildlife potential of Farmwood Pool for the Cheshire Wildlife Trust (CWT) and realised that it could be a good site for the Small Yellow Underwing. It was, and several were seen in a few minutes, but I would not have been looking for them had I not seen them unexpectedly near Malpas!

C. Ian Rutherford.
1994