In my effort to add some “wild” patches to our garden, I’ve got a lot of yarrow growing this year. A Yarrow Pug, Eupithecia millefoliata, turned up in the garden last night. This moth brings the new for me total for 2022 to 38 so far. I’ve logged 280 species of moth in the garden this year; not including the butterflies.
The Yarrow Pug is quite a scarce species only been in the British Isles since the 1930s. Usually, only seen on the south coast from Essex to Dorset but it’s spread along both sides of the Thames Estuary and beyond. First recorded here in Cambridgeshire in 1978. Pugs have that name because the naturalists thought the shape of their wings resembled the jowls of the breed of dog known as a pug!
Also new for me (NFM) last night was this tiniest of tiny moths, the Apple Leaf Miner, Lyonetia clarkella. Where the larges of the native, breeding moths in the UK, the Privet Hawk-moth can have a wingspan of up to about 120 millilimetres, L. clarkella has a wing span of a mere 8 mm or so. This particular specimen seemed even smaller than that. The larvae of leaf miners burrow through leaves eating as they go and leaving a trail behind them.
*Butterflies in the garden this year: Brimstone, Comma, Common Blue, European Peacock, Gatekeeper, Green-veined White, Holly Blue, Large Skipper, Large White, Marbled White, Meadow Brown, Orange-tip, Red Admiral, Small Copper, Small Tortoiseshell, Small White. For all my moth and butterfly photos check out the galleries on my Imaging Storm website.