A record count of palpita vitrealis IN HAMPSHIRE

Olive Tree Pearl (Palpita Vitrealis) by Tim Norriss

Estate Owner Henry Edmunds and Tim Norriss of registered charity Hampshire Swifts ran three mercury vapour moth traps in October on the Cholderton Estate.  33 species including 2 Radford’s Flame Shoulder and 19 Olive-tree Pearl (Palpita vitrealis) were caught amongst a wealth of other migrant and interesting resident species.

The Radford’s is a species that is now rapidly colonising the south coast due to climate change and is we believe the first time that it has been recorded in North Hampshire. The record of Olive-tree Pearl is the largest count of this species anywhere in the county (certainly up to this year for which records are still being collated). And that total was exceeded a few days later by a count of 34 in the same three traps here on Mon 28 October. The larvae feed on various plants including Summer Jasmine, Olive, privet and possibly also ash, strawberry-tree and forsythia.

Whilst it is possible that these moths have bred locally on privet it is also quite possible that they were primary migrants bearing in mind the other species that came in at the same time. It is interesting to note though that there were only small numbers of P. vitrealis recorded on the south coast of Hampshire at that time so it’s quite possible that the weather in the Iberian peninsula, that caused the catastrophic rainfall in Valencia, produced an up draught of hot air that carried insects of many species from S Europe up into the atmosphere before depositing them in Britain.

It is quite usual these days for meteorological backtracking to be carried out following such migration events using atmospheric transport modelling to calculate the origin of the migrant species that turn up here. There is no doubt that this was a huge perhaps unprecedented migration event so it will be fascinating to see the results when this is done. And as the global climate warms ever more rapidly such events will happen more frequently.

words by Tim Norriss, Hampshire Swifts