January Challenge

 

Hello Moth-ers,

A Happy New Year to all of you.

Tomorrow the January Moth Challenge will start. For the past several years this has been run by Peter Williams, but because he is so busy at this time of year with collating and verifying all your 2022 records, I have now taken over the reins of running the challenge. The challenge is open to anyone who wishes to take part, whether you trap in Montgomeryshire or not. And this time I have introduced some inter-county rivalry with Shropshire and Staffordshire also being invited to participate.

It is well worth having a go, as it generates many extra winter records when recording can otherwise be very sparse.

The objective of the challenge is to record 10 macro species throughout January (and 5 micro species if you record micros). As many of you have found out in the past, this is definitely not an easy challenge, but it also a bit of fun, so have a go, see how you get on, you might surprise yourselves!

 

There are just a few simple rules I would ask you to follow:-

1) The Challenge is open to anyone, whether in Montgomeryshire or not.

2) Adult moths only to be recorded.

3) Records from a single site only and from a single trap. Don’t have a trap? No problem, records such as daytime observations, moths to lit windows etc. can also count so long as they're all from the same site.

 

At the end of January all I need from you is:-

1) A list of species recorded throughout the month.

2) Total count for each species you’ve recorded.

3) Total number of nights you trapped on.

Please send your records to peterbent55@gmail.com

(And please don’t forget to submit your records to your County Recorder the way you normally do!)

If you’d like to be interactive with other recorders you can post results as you go on the Facebook group and I’ll use this information to generate interim summaries, otherwise just send me your results at the end of the challenge. Final results will appear in due course here and on the Facebook group.