Two local “moth-ers”, Dave Newcombe and Brian Hallam, independently recorded Four-spotted Footman within 24 hours of each other. Dave Newcombe ran his Belper garden moth trap overnight on 12th June 2025 and posted a record of Four-spotted Footman, that was hidden away in his list of species. I guess Dave was unaware of the significance of the species in the county and I was quite surprised when this record materialised.
Brian Hallam ran his garden moth trap overnight on 13th June 2025 for the national Garden Moth Scheme (GMS). At the time little did he know what was going to arrive. Saturday morning, 14th June he was confronted with rather a large catch and it took him most of the day to process the contents. Due to time constraints, he had to leave the completion of the processing, and so the remaining moths were left in their pots in the coolness of his garage. He was attending a moth trapping event on Saturday night, so it was Sunday morning (15th) when he suddenly realised there were some pots left to process and the contents to identify.
During Sunday afternoon (15th June), I got an email from Brian, stating he was sure he had a Four-spotted Footman, at the time I was unaware of Dave’s record and I suddenly realised the enormity of Brians account, knowing that there had only been one previous record back in the 1800’s (1894 to be precise). He kindly invited me over to confirm the record and to obtain photographs. Sure enough it was a male Four-spotted Footman, an incredible record, but not a complete surprise, as one or two had been recorded from surrounding counties of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire in recent days, so there was clearly a movement of this species taking place across the Midlands. Maybe more will follow! Unfortunately for Brian his specimen is now the third record for Derbyshire.
