I run a moth trap in my garden and have recorded hundreds of species, despite this new ones still turn up, as one did last night. The catch when I looked in the trap this morning included a female fox moth, privet hawk-moth, buff-tip, white ermine, treble lines, light brocade, light emerald and a few others. However it is often the small ones that the most interesting, even if they are often the hardest to identify. The new species, which I think I have identified correctly was a micro-moth called Cydia conicolana, one of the Tortrix moths. Like many of the micro-moths it is beautifully marked when looked at closely, something that digital photography makes much easier.
Cydia conicolana
It feeds on pines as a caterpillar and I do have a large number in a plantation a few hundred metres from my garden, so I would guess this is where it had come from.
The sunny weather is bringing out more hoverflies and other insects, today I saw several species for the first time this year, I only got a picture of one of them though, the metallic green soldierfly, Chloromyia formosa, also known as the broad centurion.
Chloromyia formosa
Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve 