An evening of bats and moths at Roundton

Our MMG event at Roundton Hill NNR was a joint event; the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust and Montgomeryshire Bat Group joining us for a night of nocturnal discovery. A mild, still evening saw around 20 folk gather to learn about bats and moths.

Tammy and Abi from MWT started the evening with a light-hearted quiz on bats and moths, where participates had to decide whether a statement was true or false by gathering in the corresponding area. As well as exercising everyone's brain, the activity resulted in some gentle exercise as people traipsed up and down the slope! The quiz was followed by a brief talk from Tammy and myself on our respective taxon groups, culminating in a bat walk around the site. Six species of bat were recorded around the woodland and stream: Common Pipistrelle, Soprano Pipistrelle, Lesser Horseshoe, Brown Long-eared Bat, Daubenton’s Bat and Whiskered Bat.

Quiz time!

By the time the bat group returned, the mothing was in full swing. Dave Green who joined us for the night had been busy netting micros and had already amassed about 15 species, including Glyphipterix fuscoviridella, a species rarely recorded in the county.  Between us we had 10 traps, spread across the reserve. The traps were able to cover the main habitats of the site: damp woodland, flowery grassland and gorse scrub. Some of the best micro records of the night were Bryotropha politella, Coleophora striatipennella and Elachista albifrontella, the latter having not been seen in the county for over 30 years.  The more notable macro records included Galium Carpet, Cloaked Carpet, Blomer's Rivulet and Campion. These species were joined by a wide range of crowd-pleasers including large numbers of Small Elephant Hawk-moth and Peach Blossom. A excellent total of 165 moth species were seen on night - one of MMG's most successful events. Just as we started packing up, the heavens opened, resulting in a somewhat damp end to the evening. Particular thanks to Paul who stayed to the drippy end lugging the kit down the hill.

Peter was sadly unable to attend this event due to back problems. Peter kindly lent me his kit for the night so many thanks for that, and thanks for Paul and Dave also for bringing along their traps. We all wish Peter a speedy recovery in plenty of time for our next event, on the 18th of July, at Cors Dyfi. 

The event details and full species list are available here.

One of the many Small Elephant Hawk-moths

Joint moth and bat recording event at Roundton Nature Reserve, Saturday 27 June.

Hello Moth-ers,

Our next mothing event is this Saturday (27June) at the Roundton Nature Reserve. This site on the far eastern side of the county has produced some very interesting records over the years, one which comes to mind was a Humming-bird hawk-moth larva recorded just last year and I’m sure the site offers plenty of scope for further good records at this event. On this occasion we will be joined by both MWT staff (who will be telling us all about bat species at this site) and I also welcome members of the Montgomeryshire bat group who will be giving us their take on the bat work that they do. If you’ve never been to one of these events before, treat yourself, please come along and join us, for a great night’s mothing and bat recording.

Full event details are:-

Venue: Roundton Nature reserve

Event Date: Saturday 27 June

Event Time: 8:30 onwards, at the reserve car park.

Directions: Head east on Castle Rd/​A489 toward Hall Bank - Take the 1st left onto Hall Bank - Hall Bank turns slightly right and becomes Green Lane - Turn right - Turn right again - finally take slight left down a restricted road usage to the car park.

Grid Reference: SO292946.

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

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.

As with all our evening events, please bring a torch and wear suitable outdoor clothing.

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

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

All the best,

Peter.

An Obscure Moth

The "mothing" has certainly looked up this weekend here at Derwenlas. My best haul this year 73 moths and 37 species. As I was moving the trap away, lurking underneath [hence looking rather scruffy] was this Obscure Wainscot which Peter has confirmed as a new county record!

 

Among other more notable finds was Beautiful Brocade, Small Clouded Brindle, Double Line and Pyla fusca. (All kindly confirmed by Peter.)

 

Alan



Migrant species are on their way!

Hello All,

Some of you might not be aware that there is quite a lot of migrant activity throughout the British Isles at the moment, so it may well prove to be productive to keep your traps switched on.

Douglas, who is at university at Oxford, has told me that the moth trapping he has been doing in that area has produced several migrant species; these include Striped Hawk-moth, Small Mottled Willow, Ni Moth and Bordered Straw. By the amount of activity on social media as regards this influx it would seem that it is nation wide and spreading across the UK from east to west.

And just to prove this point I have just received notification of a Bordered Straw (which is a new county record for Montgomeryshire) which was recorded in Newtown by Phil Evans.

Bordered Straw - a new county record

 Peter.