Welcome

Hello and welcome to my moth Blog. I now reside in a small village in East Cambridgeshire called Fordham. My Blog's aim is to promote and encourage others to participate in the wonderful hobby that is Moth-trapping.
Moth records are vital for building a picture of our ecosystem around us, as they really are the bottom of the food chain. They are an excellent early indicator of how healthy a habitat is. I openly encourage people to share their findings via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
So why do we do it? well for some people it is to get an insight into the world of Moths, for others it is to build a list of species much like 'Twitching' in the Bird world. The reason I do it....you just never know what you might find when you open up that trap! I hope to show what different species inhabit Cambridgeshire and neighbouring counties.
On this Blog you will find up-to-date records and pictures.
I run a trap regularly in my garden and also enjoy doing field trips to various localities over several different counties.
Please also check out the links in the sidebar to the right for other people's Blogs and informative Websites.
Thanks for looking and happy Mothing!

KEY

NFY = New Species For The Year
NFG = New Species For The Garden
NEW! = New Species For My Records

Any Species highlighted in RED signifies a totally new species for my records.

If you have any questions or enquiries then please feel free to email me
Contact Email : bensale@rocketmail.com

My Latest Notables and Rarities

Saturday 10 April 2010

Field Trip - Parndon Wood - Friday night

Just returned from another trip out to local Woodland, cooler than expected tonight after a balmy 20c recorded in the daytime, the temperature dropped to 7c under clear skies (met office said cloudy!! no fair!)
A brilliant catch with a good amount of new species recorded for the site, including Early Thorn, Engrailed, Purple Thorn, Brindled Pug & Oak Nycteoline.

But the best Moths of the night were 3 examples of Frosted Green and 2 examples of the very pretty Micro Moth Eriocrania subpurpurella f.fastuosella both species completely new for meb and this particular form is apparently scarcer and prettier!

Pictures


Frosted Green

















Eriocrania subpurpurella f.fastuosella


















Brindled Pug








Purple Thorn











Catch Report - Friday 09th April 2010 - Parndon Wood - 160w Robinson Trap + 40w Hanging Actinic w/White hanging sheet & ground sheets


Macro Moths

3x Frosted Green [NFY]
9x Brindled Pug [NFY]
1x Purple Thorn [NFY]
1x Engrailed [NFY]
1x Oak Nycteoline [NFY]
30x Small Quaker
9x Chestnut
28x Common Quaker
3x Hebrew Character
1x Shoulder-stripe
1x Early Thorn
3x Clouded Drab
1x Satellite


Micro Moths

2x Eriocrania subpurpurella f.fastuosella [NFY]
1x Acleris notana/ferrugana
19x Diurnea fagella

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ben, your eriocrania is the "fastuosella" form of E.subpurpurella - a little scarcer than the normal variations. There's a photo of one on the home page of my blog in cop.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Charlie
    That's brilliant thankyou! yes I see the resemblance to your picture.

    ReplyDelete