Common but not seen before..

Last night had quite a good catch with it being so mild. Plenty of Feathered Thorns, Marveille du Jour, Red Line and Yellow Line Quaker and a few Mottled Umbers.

The best for me was a fairly common species in Montgomeryshire but one I'd not personally seen before, a Red Sword Grass. Truly remarkable camouflage and if I hadn't seen a photo in a book on a previous occasion I would have just taken this as a bit of wood blown into the trap by the high winds later on in the evening.

Hopefully the heavy rain will ease off and I'll get chance to go over again before the end of the week.

MariaW

Cors Dyfi "Furballs" Officer, Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust.

More warm winds from southern Europe

More warm air is crossing the country at the moment giving us all, yet again, a chance to record good migrant species. I recorded my first Gem for five years last night, a delightful little species, so keep those traps in action, you never know when it might be your lucky night!

Peter.

Gem

Last night I managed 22 species, however nothing of any interest. Among the usual lot was Streak and high numbers of Figure of 8 and Dark Chestnut.


The night before last I had 21 species, a new micro for me was Exapate congelatella. But the real highlight was a Gem, a uncommon migrant species to Montgomeryshire. It's pushed my macro total to 333.


Douglas.

Last night's catch

Not bad for October, only migrant was Silver Y, however last night I had 3 Vestal. High numbers of Figure of 8 and Large Wainscot. Also had new for year Sprawler.

Sprawler - 2 NFY
Figure of 8 - 13
Large Wainscot - 5
Merveille Du Jour - 6
Barred Sallow - 1
Brindled Green - 1
Silver Y - 1
Satellite - 1
Green Brindled Crescent - 6
Shuttle Shaped Dart - 2
Red-line Quaker - 6
November Moth agg. - 14
Chestnut - 4
Dark Chestnut - 4
Beaded Chestnut - 3
Spruce Carpet - 1
Yellow-line Quaker - 6
Lunar Underwing - 2
Large YU - 2
S. Hebrew Character - 3
Flounced Chestnut - 1
Sallow - 1

Garden Rose Tortrix - 1

Douglas.

National Moth Recorders’ Meeting

National Moth Recorders’ Meeting

The date for the second National Moth Recorders’Meeting is January 28th 2012 at the Birmingham and Midlands Institute, central Birmingham. All are welcome.

The programme for the day has been drawn up and the line up features both amateur moth recorders and academic researchers. We are really pleased to have Professor Gareth Jones from the ‘Batlab’ at Bristol University speaking about how bats and moths try to out-wit one another in their predator/prey relationship. The draft programme for the day can be found below. It will also be available on the Moths Count website (www.mothscount.org) in due course. This year there is a £5 (per person) registration fee for attendees. This includes morning and afternoon tea/coffee and a buffet lunch all subsidised from Butterfly Conservation budgets. It
has been necessary to impose a charge this year as we no longer have Heritage Lottery Funding to cover holding such an event. Advanced booking is essential, to book your place please contact info@butterfly-conservation.org or telephone 01929 400209.


DRAFT PROGRAMME: NATIONAL MOTH RECORDERS’ MEETING 2012.

Lyttelton Lecture Theatre, Birmingham and Midland Institute, Birmingham Saturday 28 January 2012.

10.00 am Arrival and coffee.
10.30 am Welcome Dr. Martin Warren, Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation.
10.45 am National Moth Recording Scheme Update Richard Fox, Butterfly Conservation.
11.10 am Uncertain and Confused – automated validation of moth records Les Hill, Butterfly Conservation.
11.30 am A Snapshot of Ireland - recording in the Republic of Ireland Don Hodgers, Republic of Ireland Moth Recorder.
11.50 am What makes Sussex Moth Group tick? Graeme Lyons, Chairman Sussex Moth Group.
12:10 pm Discussion session.
12.30 pm Lunch.
2.00 pm Insect High Flyers: studying long-distance migration of moths Dr. Jane Hill, York University.
2.30 pm Warriors of the Deep and other Welsh Wonders Dave Slade, County Moth Recorder, Glamorgan.
2.50 pm A ‘big’ book of little moths Dr. Phil Sterling, County Micro-moth Recorder, Dorset.
3.10 pm What difference does a decade make? Mark Parsons, Butterfly Conservation.
3.40 pm Tea.
4.10 pm Sky Wars: Moths v Bats Professor Gareth Jones, University of Bristol.
4.45 pm Discussion session & closing remarks.
5.00 pm Close of meeting.

Peter.

Lake Vyrnwy event

The final MMG Event of 2011 at Lake Vyrnwy on 8th October produced 32 species in total.

The full report/species list is now on the website and can be found (along with the other 2011 event reports) here.

Fund raising for MMG

Hello all,

Montgomeryshire Moth Group has enjoyed it's most successful year ever with more events held and more attendees than ever before.

All the events and moth related information we provide (e.g the website) are free of charge for everyone to use and we'd like to keep it that way, but we do have running costs which I have fully covered up until now!

We'd also like to enhance our mothing activities and so we've set up a method through which everyone can raise funds for the Group (should you wish to do so - no obligation!)

Easyfundraising

You will see a link on the front of our website to Easyfundraising.
Through Easyfundraising, most retailers will make a direct donation to our moth group for your own personal internet shopping.

If you already shop online then you WILL be able to raise money for us!

All the big names support us including Amazon (2.5% donation) Ebay (1% donation), John Lewis (up to 2.5% - depends what you buy) etc. In fact there are thousands of retailers/services making donations through easyfundraising - many of whom also make special offers available to easyfundraising users.

To raise funds through your own personal shopping, just go to easyfundraising through our website, login with easyfundraising, and then select the retailers website you want to buy from (up to 15% from each purchase you make will be donated to Montgomeryshire Moth Group). You buy from the retailer you have always bought from but you raise money for us at the same time!

Easysearch

If you use Easysearch to do an internet search (e.g. instead of google) then Montgomeryshire Moth Group receives 0.5p every search. Give it a try!

If you've any questions then please let me know.

Good mothing and good shopping!

Peter

Last MMG event of the year at Lake Vyrnwy

Dear All

A reminder that the last MMG (Montgomeryshire Moth Group) event of 2011 is this Saturday the 8th October at Lake Vyrnwy.
I have just noticed that on some of our literature the date for this event was down for the following weekend, please ignore this as it was a typo error.

Meet: 5:30 pm. at Map reference: SH 965241

Details: This is our last event of the year and hopefully the migrants which have been very active in the county during the last week or so will show up at Lake Vyrnwy, so please come along and have an enjoyable evening, as usual, everyone is welcome.

Directions: Follow the B4393 to the northern end of the lake where you will see the reserve car park on the side of road nearest to the lake (marked ‘P’ on OS map).

Peter.

Another notable migrant

Not quite so prolific in the trap last night as far as migrants are concerned, but I did manage to catch a Scarce Bordered Straw, which was last recorded in the county in 2006.

Peter.

More good migrants flooding in

I had another excellent trap last night with two migrant species worth a mention.

Firstly I recorded four, yes four, vestal, a scarce migrant to Montgomeryshire, normally just the odd moth is found, so four in a single night is exceptional.



The other species was the Small Marbled again a scarce migrant to the uk which has only ever been recorded once before in the county (at the same site) in 2008.





Peter.

My rare migrant

Been getting rather envious of all these nice migrant being posted here but last night I caught my own.

Found it on the sheet late last night and immediately knew it was a migrant, not sure why, but I could tell. A quick look through the book and found Antigastra catalaunalis. Sure enough Peter later confirmed this tiny micro migrant, which had probably come from Southern Europe/Tropics.

It's described as "a very scarce migrant, occurring only in the southern counties". It's also a new county record.

Douglas.

Finally bagged a good migrant

I was beginning to think that I was going to miss out on a good migrant species during this exceptional weather, but as I was checking around the trap last night before going to bed I saw a small moth fluttering around the light. I knew I'd got something good as I didn't recognise it at all, but it looked like a pyralid species, which pointed me in the right direction for making a positive id. It was a very distinctive species so fingering through book it didn't take long to track it down, it was Spoladea recurvalis , a rare migrant from the Mediterranean region of Europe.

It was first discovered in the UK in 1951 in Surrey and since then only about 12 specimens have been recorded in the country, most of these on the south coast of England, so it was an excellent find for it to turn up in Montgomeryshire - very exciting and definitely one of the best moths I've recorded in twenty years of moth recording.

Peter.

Great start to October

Ran 2x 125w last night, turned out to be very worthwhile.

Trap 1:

Red-green Carpet - 2

Canary-shouldered Thorn - 3

Brown-spot Pinion - 6

LYU - 6
Beaded Chestnut - 21
Brindled Green - 4
Rosy Rustic - 3
Merveille Ju Jour - 7
Brimstone - 2
Green-brindled Crescent - 4
S. Hebrew Character - 5
Satellite - 3
November Moth agg. - 1 [NFY]
Frosted Orange - 3
Chestnut - 1
Square-spot Rustic - 6
Figure of 8 - 3
Mallow - 1 [NFM] - First county record for 49 years.  
Lunar Underwing - 4
Hedge Rustic - 1
Large Wainscot - 2
Yellow-line Quaker - 4
Sallow - 1
Green Carpet - 2
Silver Y - 2
Pale Mottled Willow - 1
Flounced Chestnut - 3
Blair's Shoulder Knot - 1
Brick - 1
Common Marbled Carpet - 1
Pine Carpet - 1 [NFM]       
Chequered FT Tortrix

Eudonia angustea - 1
Celypha lacunana - 1
Garden Rose Tortrix - 8

(35 species)

Trap 2:
Vestal - 1 [NFM]
Feathered Thorn - 1
Brindled Green - 7
Common MC - 1
Brown-spot Pinion - 9
LYU - 7
S. Hebrew Character - 9
Beaded Chestnut - 30
M. Ju Jour - 11
Dusky Lemon Sallow - 1
Green Carpet - 1
Satellite - 2
Snout - 1
BB Yellow Underwing - 1
Pink Barred Sallow - 2
CS Thorn - 3
Rosy Rustic - 4
Green Brindled Crescent - 5
Square-spot Rustic - 3
Centre-barred Sallow - 1
Sallow - 3
Silver Y - 1
Lunar Underwing - 1
Green Carpet - 2
Chestnut - 1
Yellow-line Quaker - 2

Agonopterix heracliana - 1
Agonopterix arenella - 1
Large Fruit-tree Tortrix - 1
Eudonia angustea - 1
Argyresthia goedartella - 1

(31 species)

 The wind direction is starting to change and looks as if the temperatures will soon drop, so intend to trap again tonight and make the most of these conditions while they last.

Douglas.