On the night of 11th October 2025, Richard Walker’s Formby National Trust moth trap caught a single adult of the distinctive Noctuid moth, L‑Album Wainscot (Mythimna l‑album). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first confirmed record for vice‑county 59, and certainly the first ever on the Sefton Coast.

Records of L‑Album Wainscot in the North West England are few. A single specimen was caught in VC60 by Steve Palmer last year, and only two or three others are known from Cumbria. Notably, the species does not appear in the 2024 county publication, The Moths of Lancashire. However, the record does fits a broader pattern of species expansion north with the first recording in Cheshire in 2024. Prior to the 1970s, the moth was confined to the South and South West coasts of Britain, having been first recorded breeding in Devon in the 1930s (previously thought of as a continental migrant only). Since 1990s, the moth has further expanded, colonising South Wales and Suffolk, and continues to spread to North with numbers boosted by continued migration from mainland Europe.

Breeding habitat for the moth includes damp coastal grassland, brackish ditches, and dune slacks where it’s larval stage feeds on Marram and various other grasses. There’s plenty of available habitat in Lancashire, including in the vicinity of this new record, but is L-Album Wainscot a breeding species in the county yet? It may be only a matter of time before a caterpillar is found….

Sources

• Palmer, S. (2024). Cheshire Moth Report 2024. Cheshire Moth Group.
• Fox, R. et al. (2011). The State of Britain’s Larger Moths 2010. Butterfly Conservation & Rothamsted Research.
• Langmaid, J. R. (1980). “Notes on the status and spread of Mythimna l-album in southern England.” Entomologist’s Record and Journal of Variation, 92: 45–48.
• Palmer, S. & Smart, B. (2024). The Moths of Lancashire. Pisces Publications.
• UK Moths (2025). “Mythimna l-album (L-Album Wainscot).” Retrieved from https://www.ukmoths.org.uk