Waved Black
A surprise in my moth trap in Rye this morning was this Waved Black, a new species for me. Despite appearances it’s actually a noctuid, in the same subfamily as the common Straw Dot but classed nationally scarce. Waring’s field guide says ”The earliest records were from slime moulds on rotting wood in docks and cellars in London. The main food is fungi growing on rotting trees, particularly birches and pines …”. The two main areas of distribution are now the Severn valley and the south-east, though everywhere very local, and a few immigrants have also been recorded on the Channel coast. As if this wasn’t enough, my first Satin Lutestring for the garden provided the icing on the cake.