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.