They came, they saw, they colonised
Moths have a good habit of jumping from the European mainland and colonising the south-east of England, mainly thanks to global warming, a weak Euro and a wish to escape from bland Europop. Dungeness being just about as south-east as south-east gets on this island of ours therefore gets to paw these colonisers before most other places. Take this Plumed Fan-foot for example. In 1995 Barry Banson checked his Greatstone-based MV (just north of Dungeness) and spied an unfamiliar moth. It was the UK's first Plumed Fan-foot. I was lucky enough to visit Barry on a daily basis during my stay and to go through his two MVs. We recorded four individuals which pleased me no end. Cypress Carpets may be old hat now, but I still don't see that many of them. We recorded this species frequently enough at Barry's and the bird observatory to make mention of it almost pointless. How times change. Evergestis limbata hasn't quite got to the level of making lepidopterists yawn ye...