B&F: 2321

ABH: 73.162

Status: Resident.

Distribution and Abundance: Very common.

Primary Habitat: General occurrence.

Flight Period: Mainly single brooded from June to August with a partial second brood in some years in the autumn.

Observations: Detailed records from a garden m.v. light trap running in Wellingborough in the 1950’s show moths regularly being recorded in September and October. Although this is not generally the case nowadays, in more recent years small numbers of moths have been recorded in these months in the Pitsford Water static light traps. In 2006 a singleton was recorded on 1 December. The numbers of moths seen in the 1950’s at the Wellingborough trap were also much greater with a high of 1430 in 1953 taken between 20 June and 4 October. The highest recent annual figure that I have been able to find is of 1074 moths taken at the two Pitsford Water light traps between 12 June and 4 September 2010. It is also important to say that to avoid recaptures, the Wellingborough catch was emptied at least a mile away on a daily basis. Generally melanics seem to form some one percent of the population.

L.O.N.: 1907. Everywhere. Abundant. There is a further note from 1911 – “During one of these evenings at the Chase I took a black variety of H. polyodon which very closely resembles the Scotch forms.” He is referring to Geddington Chase.

First Record: 1882, Hull & Tomalin.