Wildlife

James Lowen

I knew that this was only the third Norfolk record: I had seen the first at Laura King's house, a lie from mine, a couple of summers earlier - and another friend, Keith Kerr, had caught the second in mid-Norfolk barely a fortnight earlier.

My Euchromius was just the start. That night, two were caught on the Norfolk coast. Over the next fortnights, they were all over the place. Records came from 14 10km squares. So I was not overly surprised when, climbing the ladder to check the rooftop trap at home, I saw a grass-veneer shape on the outside of the actinic. I rushed back down for a pot, climbed carefully back up and leaned over perilously, no hands on the ladder, to pot the moth without moving the trap. This individual was in better condition than the Wells individual (if not in as perfect nick as the one Laura King caught).

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19 October 2024 Veneer of respectability

Last month, easterly winds brought good numbers of migrant birds to the Norfolk coast. They also delivered good numbers of migrant moths - albeit mainly to counties north (particularly Yorkshire, where everything interesting and winged now seems to end up). Nevertheless, I got in on the act, both at home and away. The biggest fist-pump moment came while walking back along the north Norfolk coast near Wells, after a relatively good day's birding. I flushed a grass-veneer from the marram grass. It looked slightly odd, and I hadn't seen any grass-veneers that day, so I pursued it. It eluded my hamfisted attempts to pot it four times until, after five minutes, I managed to encase it in plastic. Peering through the grime revealed a worn moth with broken-off wings - but nevertheless a clear vertical silver stripe cutting across the wings. Crikey - Euchromius ocellea (Silver-spotted Veneer)!