10 Macro species for January Challenge.

Hello Everyone,

With another New Year looming I thought I would once again do the Challenge of 'recording 10 macro species for January'. It's not an easy challenge, but then, it wouldn't be much of a challenge if it was too easy, would it. See how you get on,
I'll ask you all for your results at the end of January (please send them even if you don't get 10 species as it all goes towards building up the larger picture), then I'll post the results on the blog in February. Good luck.

All the best,

Peter.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas.

 

Douglas.

Christmas greetings

Hello all moth-ers - I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year - let's hope that 2013 is a bit drier for us - surely, it couldn't be wetter than this year, could it!!

But there are still some moths about. I recorded this very early Dotted Border on the 21st December. It beats the previous early record for the county by 12 days.

All the best.

Peter.

Happy Christmas

 HAPPY CHRISTMAS

to all my fellow MMG "mothers".

 

The other week whilst turning some xmas tree decorations in my workshop a plume moth {amblyptilia acanthodactyla} chose to adorn my unfinished tree. So much better than a fairy don't you agree.

Alan

Catch from 10th October

Not too much in the traps recently due to the chilly weather - and just to think it was this time last year when all the exciting migrants were arriving. Had a reasonable night last Wednesday night with 30 species:

Canary-shouldered Thorn - 5

Red-green Carpet - 3

Streak

Rosy Rustic - 3
Brimstone - 6
CM Carpet - 2
Set. Hebrew Char - 13
Square-spot Rustic - 5
Silver Y - 2
Blair's Shoulder Knot - 1
Barred Sallow - 1
Green-brindled Crescent - 1
Merveille Du Jour - 3
Beaded Chestnut - 16
Brown-spot Pinion - 2
Figure of Eight - 1
Snout - 1
Black Rustic - 2
Brindled Green - 1
Flounced Chestnut - 1
Large YU - 1
Frosted Orange - 1
Lunar Underwing - 1
Grey-shoulder Knot - 2
Streak - 1 
November Moth. - 2 (confirmed via genitalia)

Acleris variegana - 2
Endrosis sarcitrella - 1
Agonop arenella - 1
Ypsolopha ustella - 1
Alceris rhombana - 1

Doesn't look like 2012 will be such a good migrant year as the last. Also missing quite a few resident species this year which I caught commonly this time in 2011, namely Large Wainscot, Dusky Lemon Sallow an also Mallow. Still time though - just need a nice mild spell (preferably with SE winds!).

Douglas B.

Pont Llogel 6/10/12 - event report

The full report from last Saturday evenings moth event at Pont Llogel can be found here.

Pont Llogel event (6th October 2012)

The full report for this event will shortly appear on the main website, but here I have put photos of the species recorded on Saturday 6th October.  The first three photos were of the moths actually seen on Saturday night; the rest are taken from my collection of photos taken in Montgomeryshire.

 

Green-brindled Crescent

 

Lunar Underwing



Acleris sparsana

Canary-shouldered Thorn

Frosted Orange

Merveille du Jour

November Moth

Red-green Carpet

Silver Y (migrant)

Common Marbled Carpet (showing diagnostic underside)

Pont Llogel event 6 October 2012

Hello All,

Below you will find details of the MMG’s last mothing event of this year, which is on Saturday 6 October at Pont Llogel (please note the meet time change to 6:30 pm.).

                                                                         

This is our last mothing event of the year, so why not come along and join us for an enjoyable evening instead of sitting in and watching the TV, all are welcome. We are approaching that time of year when more migrant species are drawn to our shores, so hopefully a few of these will be attracted to our light traps.

The event details are:-

Date: 6 October 2012.

Venue: Pont Llogel – along the River.

Meet time: 6:30 pm at the bridge car park.

Directions: Pont Llogel is on the B4395, which, from the south is off the A458 near Llangadfan.

Map reference: SJ032154.

Target species: Autumn Migrants.   

Montgomeryshire Moth Group (MMG) is an independent voluntary group of people interested in moths. All ages are welcome to all events, beginners or experts.

This year all the events are light trapping events. We set up the light traps at dusk to attract moths and then release them after identification.

You are welcome to join us for as much of the evening as suits you, we are likely to stay for several hours. However, in case of cancellation, in poor weather or unforeseen circumstances, always ring or e-mail to check the event is on before joining us. Please bring a touch and suitable clothing

Please note that some sites are not easy to find, so please make sure that you know where the venue is before you set off.

Hope to see some of you at the event.

All the best,

Peter.

Caerbwla Nature Reserve, Llanerfyl event

The full report from 8th Sept moth event at Caerbwla Nature Reserve, Llanerfyl can be found here.

Public mothing event at Caerbwla Nature Reserve, Saturday 8 september

Hello All,

Below you will find details of the MMG’s next mothing event, which is on Saturday 8 September at Caerbwla Nature Reserve.

                                                                         

Our hosts for the evening are Mike & Sylvia Backhouse who own this wonderful 43 acre nature reserve. Moth trapping at this site has been very limited over the years so there is this event gives us a great opportunity to add to the site species list, so please come along and join us for a fun filled and interesting evening of mothing.

The event details are:-

Date: 8 September 2012.

Venue: Caerbwla Nature Reserve.

Meet time: 7:15 pm on site.

Directions: from the A470 take the Llanerfyl road from Talerddig. Caerbwla is 8.7 miles along this road, on the left hand side. From the A458 at Llanerfyl, turn down the Talerddig road and Caerbwla is 2.5 miles on the right.

Map reference: SJ006082.

Target species The autumn sallow species.   

Montgomeryshire Moth Group (MMG) is an independent voluntary group of people interested in moths. All ages are welcome, beginners or experts.

This year all the events are light trapping events. We set up the light traps at dusk to attract moths and then release them after identification.

You are welcome to join us for as much of the evening as suits you, we are likely to stay for several hours. However, in case of cancellation, in poor weather or unforeseen circumstances, always ring or e-mail to check the event is on before joining us. Please bring a touch and suitable clothing

Please note that some sites are not easy to find, so please make sure that you know where the venue is before you set off.

Hope to see some of you at the event.

All the best,

Peter.

Variable Smudge

Caught this rather pretty form of Ypsolopha ustella the other night. I just love the common name to this moth:
'Variable Smudge'!


Douglas B.

Recent catches

Blog seems a little quiet so thought I'd post what I've been catching over the last couple of nights. I've always been very interested in the differences between sites, in terms of what's common in relation to other sites near-by, often these differences are stark and for seemingly no reason. I thought it may interest folk to see what I've been catching recently. The following list combines the data from the two previous nights:

Large Yellow Underwing		97
Flounced Rustic		21
Common Rustic agg.		12
Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing		11
Canary-shouldered Thorn		10
Flame Shoulder		10
Dingy Footman		9
Lesser Yellow Underwing		7
Magpie		7
Rosy Rustic		7
Common Carpet		6
Silver Y		6
Small China-mark	Cataclysta lemnata	6
Common Marbled Carpet		5
Dun-bar		5
September Thorn		5
Shaded Broad-bar		5
	Argyresthia goedartella	5
	Trachycera advenella	5
Mother of Pearl	Pleuroptya ruralis	4
	Agriphila tristella	4
	Blastobasis lignea	4
Setaceous Hebrew Character		3
Willow Beauty		3
	Agriphila straminella	3
	Udea lutealis	3
Centre-barred Sallow		2
Early Thorn		2
Flame Carpet		2
Pebble Hook-tip		2
Straw Dot		2
Svensson's Copper Underwing		2
	Acleris forsskaleana	2
	Batia unitella	2
	Celypha lacunana	2
Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing		1
Burnished Brass		1
Copper Underwing		1
Gothic		1
Green Carpet		1
Heart & Dart		1
Iron Prominent		1
July Highflyer		1
Pale Eggar		1
Pale Prominent		1
Riband Wave		1
Ruby Tiger		1
Shuttle-shaped Dart		1
Six-striped Rustic		1
Small Phoenix		1
Snout		1
Square-spot Rustic		1
Swallow Prominent		1
Yellow-tail		1
	Agonopterix arenella	1
	Agriphila geniculea	1
	Argyresthia bonnetella	1
	Aspilapteryx tringipennella	1
	Bactra lancealana	1
	Caryocolum blandella	1
	Catoptria pinella	1
	Hypsopygia costalis	1
	Pandemis corylana	1
	Scrobipalpa costella	1
	Ypsolopha ustella	1

And also it nice was to find a Orange Swift on the sheet a few minutes ago - I feel I've caught it before but it's not on the garden list, so nice to be able to add another new macro. Amazingly I've caught 24 new macros for the garden this year and just short of 100 new micros! - I thought after several years trapping here I'd caught practically everything that was here; clearly not!

Just about the start of the migrant season as well; I've been keeping an eye on reports from down South and some very nice species have been turning up recently. I've just had Silver Y, Plutella xylostella and Nomophila noctuella so far but who knows what may turn up in the coming weeks! Will be keeping an eye on the weather for those all-important SE winds!

Douglas B.

Trip to Brazil

My favorite!

I've spent the last couple of weeks in Brazil; seem to have the feeling I missed some sort of sporting event, but anyway I had a great time. I went with my parents and the trip was roughly split in two: Atlantic rainforest (mainly birds and moths), then second part was in the Pantanal area (mainly for mammals).

I've uploaded some photos here to accompany my text; they should be in about the right order. Moth photo aren't all that great; almost all were taken at night under flash.

The start of the trip was flying into Sao Paulo from Heathrow, from there we flew to Rio de Janeiro to be picked up and taken to the first lodge, REGUA. It's in the Atlantic rainforest and is mainly a birding place; they also run MV lights so it was my best chance to see some tropical moths. As you can see I saw all sorts of moths; little hope of ID'ing any of them though, the chap who does the work there said it was a struggle putting some of them into families, let alone any further!

After that we had a couple of nights in Rio, weather was pretty awful though (only rain of the trip) but still a great city to see. Then flew to Brasilia to get a connecting flight to Cuiabá; where we hired a car and drove round the Pantanal for a week or so. Saw all sorts of wildlife, highlights being Giant Otter and Jaguar. Managed to photograph a few moths here, but saw many more! After flying from Cuiabá back to Sao Paulo we flew onto Heathrow home!

Douglas B.

Cors Dyfi Moth Evening, 11th August

Just a quick post as the full report is now available to view in the events section.

An excellent night throughout with good weather and a well attended event. Plenty of moths turning up - 125 different species to be exact! We also ended up adding 10 more species to the list for the reserve and also finding one of the three target species we aimed for this year. Here's a few photos of some of the new ones we had....

Lychnis

acleris forsskaleana

Bordered White

Chinese Character

 Dotted Carpet

Cors Dyfi Nature Reserve event

The full report from last Saturday evenings moth event at Cors Dyfi Nature Reserve can be found here.

Cors Dyfi mothing event, Saturday 11 August

Hello All,

Below you will find details of the MMG’s next mothing event, which is on Saturday 11 August at the Cors Dyfi Nature reserve.

                                                                         

Moth trapping at this site has rewarded us with many new county records over recent years, so you never know, something special might turn up at this event. The visitor centre will as usual be open during the evening, so they’ll be lots going on, so please come along and join us for a wonderful evening of mothing.

The event details are:-

Date: 11 August 2012.

Venue: Cors Dyfi Nature Reserve.

Meet time: 8:30 pm at the car park.

Directions: The reserve is found on the right-hand side about 4 miles south west of Machynlleth on the A487.

Map reference: SN704984.

Target species Rosy Marsh Moth, Crescent Dart and at a more local level, the Chinese Character.   

Montgomeryshire Moth Group (MMG) is an independent voluntary group of people interested in moths. All ages are welcome, beginners or experts.

This year all the events are light trapping events. We set up the light traps at dusk to attract moths and then release them after identification.

You are welcome to join us for as much of the evening as suits you, we are likely to stay for several hours. However, in case of cancellation, in poor weather or unforeseen circumstances, always ring or e-mail to check the event is on before joining us. Please bring a touch and suitable clothing

Please note that some sites are not easy to find, so please make sure that you know where the venue is before you set off.

Hope to see some of you at the event.

Peter.

Hafren Forest event - photo update

At long long last I have managed to put together this collection of photographs of moths which were seen at the Hafren Forest event on Saturday 14th July.

Peter B.



Clouded Buff

Northern Spinach

Narrow-winged Pug

Scarce Silver Y

Tawny-barred Angle ("nigrofulvata" form)

Larch Pug

Map-winged Swift

Larch Pug (melanic form)

Gold Swift (male)

Gold Swift (female)

Dusky Brocade

Broom Moth



Beautiful Golden Y



Barred Red

True Lover's Knot



July Belle (rather worn)

A Moth Marathon at Cors Dyfi

With the weather improving and looking even better for the week ahead I decided to throw caution to the wind and do a 3 nights in a row trapping session at Cors Dyfi.

The techy bit – 4 traps in total. One sheet & 125w MV bulb above the Visitor Centre. One 125w MV Skinner in the carpark. One 125w MV Robinson halfway down the boardwalk. One 40w Actinic Funnel Trap at the end of the boardwalk. Start times around 9.30pm, finish times around 4am – I had to finish this early because the birds have learned quick and come down to peck all the moths off the sheet and from around the traps! Highest temperature recorded was 19.7 at start of trapping. Lowest was 11.1 at end of trapping.

The first night, Tuesday 24^th July remained warm and much to my surprise a lot of moths turned up! Just 2 weeks previous I was still getting averages of just 40 to 60 moths in each trap, now they’d shot up to the high hundreds – amazing what a few days of warmth and dry can do!

The second night was even warmer with temperatures out on the reserve staying in the teens, it’s always 2 or 3 degrees cooler out there than up in the carpark so this made a nice change - though of course it did mean that the mozzies were totally merciless and I ended up with several painful and swollen bites. It was worth it though to get over 700 moths recorded in one night, something not achieved since the warm spell at the end of March before temperatures plummeted. Most notable of those caught was a Lime-speck Pug, not seen in the county since 1998, and 2 Clouded Magpies. 

One of the most numerous species caught was the Garden Tiger and, whilst most were the standard dark brown with white patches type, quite a few were mostly white with dark brown, something I'd not personally seen before and which led me to wonder if this species can actually produce a pure white form and what is it that actually distinguishes pigmentation on the wings?

The final night and temperatures dropped considerably, only just over 11 degrees out on the marsh – subsequently moth numbers dropped too, though still very good at around 530 in 4 traps.

Despite the endless mozzie bites, the total exhaustion and the hours spent filling in the spreadsheet afterwards it was a very enjoyable time; over 1700 moths were logged of 134 different species and 11 new species were recorded for the reserve.

Perhaps when I’ve recovered I’ll do it again.....

Moth trapping in the Cévennes, South France

For two weeks at the end of June/start of July I was out in France doing some trapping at a field centre. Total macro species for the trip is around 250, which includes some really special things I'll never see in the UK.

I've uploaded summary of the trapping here.

Some people seem to be having some issues with the above link; if you are unable to access the report there, please try here.

Douglas.

Hafren Forest 14/7

The full report from last Saturday evenings moth event at Hafren Forest can be found here.

Hafren Forest event Saturday 14 July

Hello all,

Below you will find details of the MMG’s next mothing event, which is on Saturday 14 July at Hafren Forest.

                                                                         

This is a wonderful woodland/river site, situated very near the source of the River Severn. It has had very little moth surveying done there over the years, so it is not known whether the site holds any speciality or unrecorded species, so come along and join us to see what turns up, we may all be very surprised!

The event details are:-

Venue: Hafren Forest.

Meet: 8:45 pm at the car park.

Directions: from the A470 take the B4518 towards Staylittle, as you enter the village you will see a signpost on the right for the Hafren Forest and the car park is 4.7 miles along this road on the right hand side.

Map reference: SN856870

Montgomeryshire Moth Group (MMG) is an independent voluntary group of people interested in moths. All ages are welcome, beginners or experts.

This year all the events are light trapping events. We set up the light traps at dusk to attract moths and then release them after identification.

You are welcome to join us for as much of the evening as suits you, we are likely to stay for several hours. However, in case of cancellation, in poor weather or unforeseen circumstances, always ring or e-mail to check the event is on before joining us. Please bring a touch and suitable clothing

Please note that some sites are not easy to find, so please make sure that you know where the venue is before you set off.

Hope to see some of you at the event.

Peter.