Moths in the garden August 15th

Overnight trapping in the garden for August 15 th resulted in the moths below...

Common Carpet, a common species and one of many 'carpet' species too.

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Cypress Pug - beautifully and delicately marked for one so small.

                                      

Dusky Thorn - one of a few Thorn species. On the wing from now til October usually and  common in southern half of the UK

Flounced Rustic - a very variable species and generally common. Usually fools a few people when identifying, including me.

Small Square Spot - also occasionally tricky to identify due to it being a double brooded species. Common throughout the UK.

Yellow Shell - always lovely to see but not often recorded in the garden. Tend to see them on the wing in the daytime when disturbed, usually coastal/marshy habitats in my experience. Common throughout UK with variable markings/colourings between the north and south.

August usually sees the start of Autumnal moths appearing. Since 15th we haven't had decent weather here again!

However during the day of the 16th which was a nice day we had a few more visitors to the garden. The only one I managed to get a photo of and that tolerated me doing so, was this female Common Darter Dragonfly! Even then it was a record shot on the mobile phone as I did not have my camera nearby or ready!

 

We had another dragonfly - Common Hawker which was very busy zooming around the garden. Neither of these dragonflies seemed interested in our wildlife pond! It happens every year - a dragonfly appears from nowhere in the garden but never stay long enough or visit the pond.

 The Common Hawker was observed catching a moth after we bashed a few bushes to see if there were any moths unaccounted for from earlier in the morning. With that 3 took flight and one was had by the dragonfly while on the wing. An amazing sight even though I did jump with bit of a fright as again it appeared from nowhere.