Moths have been studied in detail in Fineshade Wood for many years, including by means of a Rothampsted trap, which ran almost every night during the years 1993 to 2002.  As a result many more species of moths have been recorded here than of the other families of wildlife.

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Undoubtedly the most important nationally is the Concolorous moth - which warrants a whole web-page of its own - but other rarities include the Festoon, Mere Wainscot and Square-spotted Clay. 

 

A new species was recorded in a garden at Top Lodge in July 2017 - the amazing Hummingbird Hawk-moth was seen hovering and feeding on Valerian. Another addition to the Fineshade list, a Frosted Green, came to a light in April 2018.

 

In the summers of 2017-2022 during many nights of trapping in Westhay Wood for the Back from the Brink project, volunteer Ron Follows caught many other new species, including several that are nationally scarce or locally rare.  The most spectacular of these was the Clifden Nonpareil (see photo below). This brings Fineshade's moth-species count up to 861, making it probably the top site in Northamptonshire for recorded species richness.