My First Backyard Macro Moth of 2015!

We’ve had a lot of warm weather recently but my light trap had remained stubbornly empty until last night when 2 Speckled Green Fruitworm (Orthosia hibisci) moths turned up.  This is my earliest ever record of a macro moth since I started mothing in 2007.  My previous early record was a Dot-and-Dash Swordgrass (Xylena curvimacula) on the 1st April 2013.  Hopefully, this is the start of an interesting mothing year.

Summary of my Calgary Backyard Moth Species for 2014

As the 2015 mothing season appears to be just around the corner, he says hopefully, I thought it was about time that I did an end of year summary for 2014…

The macro moth numbers were considerably down when compared to previous years but that is as much due to the number of times that I had the light and bait traps out as to anything else.  With vacations and bad weather I only had the light trap out 3 times in June!

Still the year was not a complete loss. I did record 133 species of macro moths, 7 of which were new records for my backyard.  As usual, these figures do not include a handful of species that I have not yet identified and some micro moths.

The new backyard species were:

Black-rimmed Prominent (Pheosia rimosa)
Leucania insueta
Brother Moth (Raphia frater)
Atlantic Arches Moth (Lacanobia atlantica)
Scripted Arches (Mamestra curialis)
Spruce Cone Looper Moth (Eupithecia mutata)
Spotted Grass Moth (Rivula propinqualis)

This brings my backyard macro moth list to 280.

The following is a summary of my most frequently record backyard moths.  No real surprises here:

Backyard Moths where the numbers counted were greater than 50
Common Name	Latin Name	Number
Glassy Cutworm	Apamea devastator	395
Thoughtful Apamea	Apamea cogitata	308
Bristly Cutworm Moth	Lacinipolia renigera	160
Olive Arches	Lacinipolia olivacea	109
Civil Rustic Moth	Platyperigea montana	83
Morrison's Sooty Dart	Pseudohermonassa tenuicula	71
Lesser Wainscot	Mythimna oxygala	65
Bronzed Cutworm Moth	Nephelodes minians	56
Mottled Rustic	Caradrina morpheus	53
Setaceous Hebrew Character	Xestia c-nigrum	53

Once again, a special thanks to Gary Anweiler and anyone else who helped with the ID’s.

The following photographs were taken in the Okanagan, although, I have seen these Sphinx moths in Alberta.