Day 308 - Crackingly Super and Meticulous Canary Shouldered Moth

Canary-Shouldered Thorn Moth (Ennomos alniaria)

Hey everyone today's Day 308 and a little while ago I went to the Nosterfield Open day. As I am a volunteer there, I got to help out. Dad and I were given the task of helping out with the moth trapping. We saw 60 - 70+ moths, and 200 Yellow Under-wings!! You do get a bit sick of them after a while... Anyway, while we were counting them, we trapped some of them into some glass containers and put them in a cooler.

Right at the end, I created a little moth reserve on a table out of leaves, grass and sticks. We put the now-docile-moths into the little reserve and took some pictures. One of my favourite moths was the Canary-Shouldered Moth.

A nice top shot

So, here are the facts:

• Firstly their name. Yes they have canary yellow on them so that basically explains the colour part but the shoulder..?

• Well, Moths don't technically have shoulders and even if they did, the canary would be all over them not just their shoulders!
  
  
  Well, a lot of Moth names are weird...

• They are found mostly in England and Wales but they get less common the further North that you go.

• There are some found on the Isle of Wight which is a first for my blog as well as being found quite commonly in Ireland.

From the side

• They have a quite large wingspan of 38mm - 42mm. That's probably one of the most specific moth wingspans I have seen so far.

• The single generation in the year are actually only found flying from July all the way to October.

• The larvae are only found eating a range of deciduous trees while the adults will feed on nectar.

• They are found as far West as Russia and the rest of Western Europe. They're found as far as Scandinavia and as far South as the North of the Mediterranean.

Hello!

Here are some links to some more information:

UK Moths - Canary Shouldered Moth

NatureSpot - Canary Shouldered Moth

Norfolk Moths - Canary Shouldered Moth

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.