The Lyons Share

We found this gorgeous little micro moth  at Hope Gap at Seaford Head yesterday. Out of the trio of 'mint moths', this one is the scarcest being Pyrausta ostrinalis (Nb). I have only ever seen it in the Burren  on the west coast or Ireland before, so it's great to find a new site for it in Sussex, although it's not quite a new 10km square record. There are only around half a dozen records for this in the SxBRC and we recorded about four of them yesterday. A narrow, slightly concave wing with creamy (not yellow/orange), dark-edged connected dots separates this from the commoner species of Pyrausta. We only saw this species in tightly grazed (you can see you are never far from a rabbit dropping in the above photo) CG2 chalk grassland yesterday.

We also spotted my third record of the scarce dor beetle Trypocopris vernalis (Na), which I have ONLY ever seen in late summer and autumn in this same 10 km square (TV59) but this is a new record for Seaford Head.