Always make one last check

My mothing hasnt been a huge success so far this year. There havent been many occasions when I have been able put out my trap, and on some of these there has been torrential rain, or the trap has been blown over, so it wasnt with a great deal of optimism that I put my trap out last night.

The previous night had been an extremely late one so I was feeling very tired. At 10pm I decided that I had to go to bed.  Should I make one last check on the trap? I couldnt be bothered so started plodding up the stairs to bed. I looked out of the window at the top of the stairs and realised I had left the shed light on, so I would have to go back out anyway. I plodded back downstairs, picked up my bag of moth pots and shambled across towards the trap. About 2 mettres from the trap on the grass was a rather manic moth fluttering erratically about. As I got it in the pot I realised it was one I hadnt seen before. I got back inside, put on my glasses and saw this:

Small Eggar, a rarity in the county and by far my best moth so far. From now on I think I will always make one last check.

Paul

Good catch at Commins Coch

Things are picking up in the west of the county as well. I can't quite match Douglas' figures, but last night I did record 150 moths and 21 species.

My best micro was Agonopterix ciliella and as for the macros, Red Sword-grass and White-marked are worth a mention.

Peter.

Spring

Last night was productive with over 400 moths comprising of 24 species.

Best micros were Zelleria hepariella, Agonopterix alstromeriana and Caloptilia semifascia.

C. semifascia

Also, first Lead-coloured Drab of the year. An exceptionally dull form.

A drab Lead-coloured Drab

Montgomeryshire Moth Group (MMG) annual report for 2013

My annual moth report for 2013, can now be found in the 'Articles and Reports' area of the website.

Peter.

Identifying Lead-coloured Drab

New PDF posted in the 'Articles' section of the site. Hope some of you may find it useful.

D.

An unexpected visitor!

This unexpected Common Marbled Carpet turned up last week (February 25th) in our sitting room. It was spotted by my husband, Steve, who doesn't purport to be a moth-er, but is always interested in what's around. Whether it's a very early or very late record is an interesting thought! There doesn't seem to be any reference to this species overwintering in the literature I've referred to, but whether the very mild weather could have played a part............?

To quote Peter W, "I can only come up with two suggestions – either the larva somehow crawled into your house, pupated and then emerged early in the warmth, or the other possibility is that it is just a very early 2014 emergence (over seven weeks earlier than the previous earliest record for the county), either way, it’s certainly a record breaker."

Thanks Peter - perhaps we'll never know?!

Keep an eye open for the Small Brindled Beauty

One of our more uncommon and elusive species is the Small Brindled Beauty. Its flight period is around this time, so please keep an eye open for it, in and around your traps, but you don't have long to record one as they are normally on the wing for a couple of weeks, then they're finished, so keep those traps up and running for the best chances of seeing one.

Peter.

The January challenge results for 2014

Hello Everyone.

Here are the results of the '10 Macro/5 micro challenge for January 2014'.

This year for the first time, micro moths were included in the challenge and I think, generally speaking they've made quite a good show with ten species being recorded.

As you can see, the chart below shows that ten recorders took part in this years challenge (two more than last year). Only one recorder actually reached both targets of ten macros and five micros (myself), but everyone made a good effort, although generally speaking the records were on the low side. This was likely to be due to the very wet weather we had throughout January, rather than anything else.

Overall, an excellent 25 species, (15 macro and 10 micro) and 405 moths were recorded. By far the most numerous species was the Winter Moth, which was probably to be expected, surprisingly though, it was only caught by two recorders. The Early Moth was the most numerous species, caught by the most recorders (4).

 

Below is a chart showing the top five recorded species for the last three years. Once again the Winter Moth holds the top spot (which is not to be unexpected really), but generally speaking the moth count is well down on last year.

Many thanks to all those who took part in this years challenge and often in atrocious weather conditions (did the rain actually ever stop!). As well as being fun to do, the 'challenge' also gives us more data for those often under recorded winter flying species which we wouldn't have were it not for extra trapping done in the 'challenge'.
The full list of recorders who took part are:- Douglas Boyes, Richard Vernon, Peter Williams, Les Wilkins, Maria Wagland, Deborah Griffith, Paul Roughly, Alan Tadman, Tammy Stretton & Sue Southam.

All the best and happy mothing during 2014.

January moth challenge

Hello All,

Now that January has drawn to a close could those of you who took part please send me your results for my ‘January moth challenge’? This year January was very wet and mild, so it will very interesting to see how you all got on. I need just three bits of information from you:-

1) A full list of macro and micro species recorded.

2) Total number of moths recorded for each species.

3) Days trapped during the month.

Please remember, it doesn’t matter how many species you recorded during the month, even if you caught just a single moth, please send me the details as it all goes towards building up the larger picture. Thanks.

In a week or so, once I’ve gathered in all the data in, I will post the results on our blog.

All the best,

Peter.

10 macro/5micro moth challenge for January

Hello Everyone,

With another New Year approaching I am once again doing our January challenge and this time to spice things up a bit the challenge has been extended to incorporate micro moths as well. So the challenge is to record ‘10 macro/5 micro species during January’. It's not an easy challenge, but it’s well worth having a go at as it generates many extra winter records for the county when recording is often very sparse. It’s also a bit of fun, have a go, see how you get on, you might surprise yourselves. So go on, dust those traps off and get recording!

I’ll ask you all for your results at the end of January (please send your results even if you don’t record ten macro or five micro species, as it all goes towards building the bigger picture), then I’ll post the results on the blog at the beginning of February.

All the best and a Happy New year to you all,

Peter.