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Britain's most boring moth?
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Wednesday, 26 May 2010 17:27
OK, so some might argue the Drab Looper has 'character' but I think the name says it all. It's small, it's brown, has no markings and is a nightmare to photograph (hence the rubbish shot) as I can never get them to stay bloody still! It is however, nationally scarce (Nb) and a BAP priority species. West Dean Woods is a great site for Drab Looper, the sole foodplant is Wood Spurge and this plant is abundant during the early stages of the coppice cycle. The moth is also a day flyer (a surprisingly strong flyer for such a little moth) and I recorded 14 today but only in areas that were coppiced in the winter of 2008/09. I also saw dozens of Silver-Ys and a few Speckled Yellows. I completed my first quadrats of the year today at West Dean, good to get back into some vegetative botany. I also saw this longhorn beetle feeding on Wood Spurge, it's a female Black-striped Longhorn Beetle Stenurella melanura. Birds heard but not seen included Turtle Dove, Crossbill and Siskin. Earlier this morning during a breeding bird survey at Butcherlands I saw a Hobby and yet another Turtle Dove.
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