Today I was invited to take part in a search with someone from Butterfly Conservation UK and from the Banstead Commons Conservators, looking for a rare moth species, the Surrey Midget (Phyllonorycter scabiosella). More specifically we were looking for the leaf mines caused by the larva of the moth on the basal leaves of Small Scabious (Scabiosa columbaria).

Sadly no evidence was found to suggest that this moth, which was present a decade ago, is still on Banstead Downs.

During the search, though, I did find an empty pupal cocoon of the Six-spot Burnet Moth (Zygaena filipendulae) on a grass stem.

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