Over the summer we have had an elephant hawkmoth and two poplar hawkmoths in our light trap at Osney Lock Hydro. This is the first time we’ve captured hawkmoths at the hydro. They are big, spectacular moths and wonderful to see up close.

In August we also had a tree-lichen beauty in the trap. This small, colourful moth is a recent colonist having spread to the UK from Europe. Resident populations became established in the 2000s in the southeast and it was first recorded in Oxfordshire in 2015. The tree-lichen moth’s caterpillars, as the name suggests, feed on lichens on tree bark.

As our climate changes, more and more moth species, like the tree-lichen beauty, are establishing themselves in the UK.