Yorkshire Status: Rare migrant, possibly starting to colonise.

Delicate has always been considered to be a migrant species. The first county record was in 1978, and for many years it remained a sporadic migrant with few records apart from a surprising 39 in the extraordinary "migrant year" of 2006. From 2016 it began to appear every year, and we were surprised to receive 17 records in 2022. In 2023 we received 51 records, but this was dwarfed by 2024 which brought 181 records of 294 moths from 44 sites. We know that this species is now resident in the south-east of England and have been predicting it as a future colonist in Yorkshire. This may have come earlier than expected and it is likely to be resident already, though the majority of moths are probably migrants. Moths fly here in June/July and September/October. It is worth noting that where it is resident, it is bivoltine and flies at these times. It will be interesting to see what happens in future years.

Sutton & Beaumont, 1989: This migrant is often quite frequent in southern Britain but it was not recorded in Yorkshire until one was taken at Muston near Filey (VC61) by P. Q. Winter on 11.10.1978 (Bretherton & Chalmers-Hunt, 1979). One has since also been taken at Spurn (VC61) by B. R. Spence on 18.9.1982 (Bretherton & Chalmers-Hunt, 1983).

	Retained Specimen / Photograph will be Required.

Recorded in 43 (22%) of 200 10k Squares.
First Recorded in 1978.
Last Recorded in 2024.
Additional Stats