Wildlife

James Lowen

This also meant running a moth trap. The first four nights were cold, so I ran a trap just once: a single Bordered Straw was all I could muster. The final three nights saw temps of 8–11C: not high, but worth giving it a go, especially as the wind slackened. In total, I have tentatively identified 75 species of moth from those three nights. I say ‘tentatively’: I had hoped that the past year might have seen a strengthening of online resources about the identification of Cyprus’s night-flying lepidoptera. Instead, the second result that came up when I googled ‘moths in Cyprus’ was my own blog from last year. Interestingly, despite visiting only three weeks earlier this year than last, the overlap in lists was not even half-a-dozen species. What must it be like to run lights here in summer?! The best thing about mothing, however, was the enthusiasm shown by Wildlife Travel clients (and those of another tour group too, who we invited to join us!) at our ‘moth breakfasts’ (see below). All our group had their ‘eyes opened’ about these creatures. My work there may be done…

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5 April 2025 Cyprus moths II

From 19-26 March, Sarah Lambert and I co-led the Wildlife Travel tour to Cyprus. We had a great itinerary and a fabulous group. The cool, damp winter weather made for a late-ish flowering season, so orchids – the primary focus of the trip – were all present and correct: they will be treated to a separate blog in due course. Having visited last April, the pressure was off for me personally in terms of seeing the endemic birds, at least – an experience I wrote about for Bird Watching magazine last year – so I could relax and enjoy whatever we encountered: more on this in a subsequent blog.

Two other classy micros were the endemic version of Broom-tip, Chesia rhegmetea, and Eutelia adulatrix. I caught this remarkable-looking moth in Lesvos two years ago, and it was a delight to see several here. Silver Cloud was also new for me; this being a moth that was on the itinerary during my Much Ado About Mothing year, only for us to wimp out of the extra 3-hour drive through all-night-trapping exhaustion.

Two of the smallest moths pleased me deeply. Adela paludicolella, like its longhorn congeners in the UK, displays communally, with males bouncing around in a lek. Seeing the clients docs in on something so tiny, then become completely entranced by it, was possibly the highlight of the tour. A close-run second was Micropterix cypriensis, an endemic member of the tiny, primitive moth family that has jaws rather than a proboscis. Stunning and evolutionarily fascinating.

The final night I trapped was particularly rewarding, with a goodly number of species that are migrants in UK - and probably are here in Cyprus too. The highlight was a new species for me, Levant Blackneck, of which there was an influx numbering double figures. Mediterranean Brocade and Tawny Prominent were also most smart.