Day 4: 21/06/2015 - Portland wild flowers and Penn's Weare
Took a trap to one of the Church Ope quarries last night in the hope of finding Portland Ribbon Wave. Failed with that but did had two new species - the spectacularly marked Cynaeda dentalis and the rather less exciting Valerian Pug.
Having seen such a lot of wild flowers on our walk yesterday we decided to try and identify some of them this morning. We went to a disused quarry at Easton near Church Ope cove. Amongst other things we identified: Red Valerian, Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil, Black Mustard, Pale Flax, Bristly Ox-tongue, Scented Mayweed, Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Privet, Dogwood, Common Vetch, Horsehoe Vetch, Kidney Vetch, Lesser Knapweed, Ivy Broomrape, Common Toadflax, Herb Robert, Scarlet Pimpernel and Weld.
Returned to base for lunch and a read, then spent the afternoon at Penn's Weare - a large limestone scree undercliff area east of Easton. Here we were looking, unsuccessfully, for the endemic moth Eudarcia richardsoni. This moth is only known from Portland and near Swanage - and nowhere else in the world. I expect we'll try again. The effort was not a complete failure, however - firstly, it was a lovely sunny afternoon and the coastal views were very good; secondly, while trying to find a way through dense Dogwood scrub I caught several tiny moths one of which I am fairly sure is Antispila metalella - rare and not previously recorded on Portland as far as I can see (the ID will need confirmation by dissection).