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

Friday 24 September 2010

Field Trip - Thorndon Country Park - 23/09/10

Awful, absolutely awful is what our latest trapping session was.

All day it rained but the temperatures remained very good at 18c and it was predicted to stop raining for the evening...good! and it did just that, with cloud still lingering I proceeded down the chocker M11 only to be confronted with not one but two accidents, a stranded lorry and a broken down car, so I eventually got there after nearly 2 hours travelling (a journey which normally only takes me 40 minutes)
Arriving the sky had, yes you've guessed it...Cleared! argh! and to top it all off the moon was still shining bright.
We'd hope the light breeze would bring some cloud over, it did for a while, fine wispy stuff that could not conceal the moon and then it didn't as the breeze dropped off, leaving us with a clear sky a bright moon and very little coming to the trap.

In short we spotted more species of Fungi than Moths! with just a single Brimstone Moth, Lesser Yellow Underwing, Agonopterix arenella, 4 Light Emerald....that's four species so far are you keeping up?
The 5th species we were very surprised about as it made up about 97% of the catch, it was to be the Oak Lutestring, not a common moth here in Essex but it seemed pretty common here tonight with to my knowledge more than 25 individuals turning up to all 3 traps.

Maybe we will get one more field trip in before the year ends, i'm hopeful but please don't grace us with clear skies and full moon again on arriving to our destination.

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