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

Sunday 10 October 2010

Field Trip - Grays Chalk Quarry - Saturday night

Had a trip out to Grays Chalk Quarry in South-west Essex last night, perfect conditions, a little breezy but nice and overcast.

The amount of moths was slightly disappointing between 4 traps initially (they should have been piling in given the conditions!), but on inspection of the last trap (mine) we were rewarded with Dotted Chestnut, L-album Wainscot and 4 Autumnal Rustic's, the two latter species being a first for me.

Other species of note were Rusty Dot Pearl, Agonopterix ocellana, Pink-barred Sallow and countless Acleris emargana.

I think we ended up with 20 species of Macro and about 10 species of Micro.

Full list will be added in due course....here are some pictures.



L-album Wainscot











Dotted Chestnut












Rusty Dot Pearl











Autumnal Rustic












Pink-barred Sallow












Agonopterix ocellana










Argyresthia goedartella









Gracillariidae id - Not sure on this one

3 comments:

  1. Superb Dotted Chestnut there Ben - I could do with seeing one of those.
    I'm pretty sure that your Caloptilia is semifascia.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ben, would you be able to link to my new moth blog please?

    Cheers Stewart

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Mark, you could be right! Yes sure Stewart i'd be happy to.

    ReplyDelete