As part of the preparation for our 20 years celebrations we will have to have a brief period of partial closure, from Tuesday 5 – Wednesday 20 March when the house (including the shop and café) will be closed to the public. Our grounds will remain open. To find out more, please visit our opening times and prices page to find out more.

It was fabulous to have the BBC Ndeavour Moth Group on site last month. They ran 10 light traps in the grounds of Compton Verney on the night of the 27th July 2021.

Grace Brindle from the Compton Verney Team had asked Bob (on behalf of the BBC Ndeavour Moth Group) to run some moth traps overnight and so the contents could be viewed the following morning by those attending a ‘Big Butterfly Count’ event.

The following morning the numbers of moths was significantly lower than expected which dented the teams’ enthusiasm somewhat. However, of the few moths retained for closer examination, there were two moths which transformed a mediocre moth night into one of GREAT joy and excitement!

A very small moth, a macro species, that was initially identified in the field as a Pinion-streaked Snout turned out to be a Marsh Oblique-barred, which has now been confirmed as a new VC38 (Warwickshire) record by David Brown the Warwickshire macro moth county recorder. This is a Nationally Scarce B moth with a scattered distribution and found mainly up the western side of Britain. The food plant for this species is unknown in the wild.

The other very small moth, a micro species, was another Nationally Scarce B species Dichomeris alacella. There are only 2 former VC38 records, one a modern day record in 2018, the other record dates back to 1934! This has now been confirmed by Nigel Stone the Warwickshire micro moth recorder. This is another Nationally Scarce B species with a mainly southern counties distribution. The food plant being lichens.

Although both of these rare moths were found in two of Bob’s traps, he would like them to be credited to Lee Taylor-Wheel, who in the first place had the presence of mind to retain them, and then to subsequently deliver on their true identification, well done Lee!! What a fantastic find!

A full list of species will be made available at a later date.

Bob wanted to say thank-you to Grace and the team at Compton Verney for the opportunity to record the moths and that he would be delighted to accommodate a dedicated Public Moth Night for Compton Verney in 2022.