A wet and windy base camp |
Alan and I arrived
on-site just after 7:00 pm, the rain had been forecast to arrive by about
10:00pm, so we thought we would be well set up by then and that we could just
sit it out. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the way things panned out as, when we
arrived, it started to rain fairly steadily and the next hour or so was spent
getting the traps out and setting up base camp under the gazebo; we were
certainly a bit soggy by the time we had done everything! Soon after this the rain
subsided and Douglas turned up with some
further traps. Shortly before 9:00 pm the lights were switched on and we looked
forward to a good evening’s trapping.
The Ingrailed Clay and Antler Moth made their presence known almost immediately, these
were the most abundant species throughout the evening. These were shortly
followed by the attractive Twin-spot
Carpet a species found mostly in upland/moorland areas. As moorland events
aren’t done very often we had in fact listed five species as our ‘target species’,
and, we did quite well as we managed to record three out of the five – these
were the macro species of Neglected
Rustic (a species which I hadn’t seen before), the Heath Rustic, and the micro species of Acleris caledoniana.
Only one migrant species
was recorded - a solitary Silver Y.
Rather
surprisingly, we also manage to trap a new county record, this was a real bonus
- Celypha
rivulana is nationally a local micro species found in various habitats.
In all 24 species were recorded, 18 macro and 6 micro - For a full species list
please click here.
Twin-spot Carpet |
Around 10:00pm the
heavens really opened up, but this time the driving rain (at 45 degrees) was
accompanied by some strong winds, and, out on the exposed moorland there’s
absolutly nowhere to hide, so, we had to lower the gazebo down, and for about an hour
while this storm persisted we all hung onto the gazebo for fear of it blowing
away! Meurig was checking a trap when the rain started, I can see him now
returning through the heather to base camp – this conjured up an instant
impression for me as he resembled the bedraggled and drenched convict, Abel Magwitch
(from Great Expectations), labouring across the moor – certainly a sight for
sore eyes, this definately lighened the moment.
Dark Arches |
By about 11:00pm
the rain once again subsided and we had a dry spell to check all the traps;
this yielded a True Lover’s Knot, Northern Spinach, Chevron, Anomalous and
a Map-winged swift, but moth
activity had slowed down by now and
shortly before midnight we decided to call it a day and pack up. This time,
however, we did time it perfectly as we managed to get all the kit away just in time for the rain to have a
final say, but, it really didn’t matter now, as we were all heading home – the
moor and its mothy ‘Great Expectations’, vacated till another episode!
Peter.