In spite of the rain...

After the last few days of July-level temperatures (but not moths to match), last night it rained pretty much all night, but, finally, a species I had quite a few of last year, and was beginning to give up hope on!

1 x Twenty-plume Moth
2 x Diurnea fagella
1 x Double-striped Pug
2 x Hebrew Character
1 x Early Grey
1 x Emmelina monodactyla
1 x Twin-spotted Quaker

Twin-spotted Quaker

Another new species!

Nice to see another species I've not had in my garden before.

1 x Twenty-plume Moth - not had this to light before!
2 x Early Tooth-striped - new for the garden
3 x Hebrew Character
3 x Small Quaker
1 x Chestnut
2 x Emmelina monodactyla
4 x Common Quaker
1 x Diurnea fagella
3 x Double-striped Pug

Early Tooth-striped

A new species

Always nice to see a new species for the garden in my trap, and I got two of them !

2 x Hebrew Character
1 x Small Quaker
1 x Common Quaker
2 x Emmelina monodactyla
1 x Dotted Chestnut
2 x Streamer

Streamer

A Trip Out and GMS

Last night, Rob and I sat with a 50W MV light in Church Wood, Hedgerley. With clear skies and low temperatures, we didn't hold much hope of a large haul:

10 x Engrailed
1 x Hebrew Character
2 x Brindled Pug
2 x Early Thorn
2 x Early Tooth-striped
1 x Chestnut

Also, at home, I set my trap for the Garden Moth Scheme (GMS) - see the link on the right of the page for more on this. Since the temperature was the lowest for several days at 1.8C, not a great catch:

1 x Hebrew Character
1 x Early Grey
1 x Emmelina monodactyla
1 x Diurnea fagella

Early Grey

Slightly damp but...

Woke to find it had rained overnight, so I didn't expect too much.

3 x Emmelina monodactyla
5 x Early Grey
5 x Small Quaker
3 x Common Quaker
1 x Hebrew Character
1 x Brindled Pug
1 x Diurnea fagella (new for the year!)

A well camouflaged D. fagella

A windy night

Very windy here last night, but mild, so today's trap held

1 x Brindled Pug
1 x Clouded Drab
3 x Hebrew Character
3 x Small Quaker
1 x Chestnut
1 x Yellow Horned
2 x Common Quaker
1 x Early Grey
1 x Emmelina monodactyla

Common Quaker

And so to spring

Last year, on Easter Monday, it started to rain, and it pretty much didn't stop for the rest of the year.

This year, it appears* that spring has started. This means that the trap has been out every night since then.

*I'm not the meteorological expert.

Over 8 nights when I've actually caught something, the totals are as follows with the max. catch per night in brackets.

2 x Tortricodes Alternella (1)
2 x Emmeline mondactyla (the common Plume Moth) (2)
4 x Yellow Horned (2)
2 x Brindled Pug (2)
6 x Oak Beauty (2)
10 x Small Quaker (4)
9 x Common Quaker (3)
2 x Clouded Drab (2)
12 x Hebrew Character (5)
2 x Early Grey (1)
1 x Chestnut (1)
1 x Dotted Chestnut (1)

 Dotted Chestnut

 Clouded Drab

 Oak Beauty

Yellow Horned

The year so far.

The trap had a brief outing on Jan 28th. The haul was small, a Chestnut, a Dark Chestnut and an early  March Moth.

Getting desperate to see something more, I tried again mid-Feb, finding just a Chestnut.

A brief spell of warmer weather at the start of March made me hope that we were going to have a repeat of last year's mild spring, and over 4 nights, I caught 33 moths of 13 species, including Light Brown Apple Moth, Small Brindled Beauty, Oak Beauty, Dotted Border, Hebrew Character and Satellite.

A couple of my early spring visitors:

Small Brindled Beauty

Chestnut

After picking up the mothing "bug" from my friend Rob, I've been running a home-made skinner-type moth trap in my garden in the Chilterns.

Here it is:

I would like to add that the umbrella is an integral part of the set up; it keeps the rain out on wet nights, and on dry nights, sometimes I get more moths inside it than the trap itself!

The light is a 15W actinic; sometimes this year I'm going to use an 80W MV but it is so bright, I won't run that all night.

This blog will basically be a list, with pics, of what I catch. Last year, my first season, I caught over 4000 moths of around 300 species. Last year, it was very wet. This year it has been very cold. Let's see how it pans out...