After a spell of rather wet weather Saturday afternoon had dried up quite nicely, it seemed as though the mothing gods were with us and we would have a dry event, However, as we were setting up at around 8:15 the heavens opened up with a torrential downpour, luckily we had just got the gazebo erected, so we at least could keep ourselves and some of the kit dry. After ten minutes or so the rain abated and we could switch the traps on - thankfully the rest of the evening remained dry.
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| Gathering by the white sheet |
After the rain the moths started coming at a steady flow with a Small Fan-footed Wave followed by a Black Arches, a very striking species. Some of the more common species like Large Yellow Underwing, Small Phoenix, Dingy Footman and Buff Footman didn't disappoint and made a show.
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| Black Arches |
The Common Carpet turned up which generated a workshop on the diagnostic differences between this species and the Wood Carpet. A similar workshop took place when a Treble-bar came to the white sheet and we discussed the differences between this and the Lesser Treble-bar.
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| Treble-bar |
Species continued to come to arrive and the white sheet was particularly busy; the Snout, Oak Hook-tip and Iron Prominent all made a show, but the two best species of the evening were undoubtedly a Blomer's Rivulet, a nationally scarce B species, and one which we have recorded at this site in the past and the Lesser-spotted Pinion, a local species of which we only have 14 records in our database. In all we managed to record 25 macro species.
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| Iron Prominent |
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| Blomer's Rivulet |
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| Lesser-spotted Pinion |
Micro species were slightly down in numbers but we did manage to record 12 species which included Pandemis corylana, Epinotia nisella and Acleris laterana.
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| Epinotia nisella |
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| Pandemis corylana |
By midnight moths coming to the table had slowed down so the ten of us who had turned up for the event decided to call it a night, which was enjoyed by everyone. Many thanks to Julie, Meurig and Rob for supplying the photos. A full species list can be seen here.
On a rain related footnote - as we were leaving the site we had to replace the big post which we had to remove earlier so that we could access the site with our vehicles - Mark knew that the rain would be sitting in the bottom of the post hole, so he told Julie and myself to 'stand back' as he dropped the post in, but hilariously, when he dropped the post in the hole, the splashback only went in one direction - back towards Mark, shouldn't laugh really, but it was rather funny.
We look forwards to our next event which will be at Roundton Hill on Saturday 25th September - I look forwards to seeing some of you there.
Peter.
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