Yorkshire Status: Very local resident.

In 1883 Porritt said that White Colon was "common at Spurn", and in 1904 also listed records from Middlesbrough and Redcar. 98% of our records are from the Spurn area, but it still occurs at a low density in the Teesside area and occasional moths crop up in the extreme south-east of VC63. Numbers are very much reduced in recent years, and fluctuate widely - from 110 records in 2004 to two in 2013, then 48 in 2015 down to just two again in 2021. This makes it rather difficult to know how it is doing. Nationally the Atlas tells us that its "distribution has decreased very severely since 1970 and continues to decline". The biggest counts were in the 1990s, the maximum being 36 at Spurn on 9/6/1997, though in a good year even now, counts occasionally reach double figures. This is a moth of shingle, dunes and coastal marshes, the larvae feeding on salt-loving herbaceous plants.

Sutton & Beaumont, 1989: Still recorded regularly at Spurn (VC61). There has been only one other recent report of this species in Yorkshire.

Recorded in 12 (6%) of 200 10k Squares. First Recorded in 1883. Last Recorded in 2023. Additional Stats

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