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

Thursday 10 October 2013

Hemel Hempstead Field Trip - 07/10/13

I made another trip over to Hemel Hempstead, and joined three other keen chaps in search of some autumnal moths.                                                                                                                       David had setup 2 traps at Gadesprings ready to go on at dusk, we then all met up at the old barn about half a mile away as the crow flies, intending on going back later and emptying the two traps at Gadesprings. 

I arrived at the barn at 6.40pm and the night was already drawing in, it was mild and muggy with reasonable cloud cover. I set-up the MV trap near the barn and the Actinic suitcase trap near the entrance to Hay Wood. The other trap was the blended mercury bulb and was postioned at the other side of Hay Wood running off the genny.

At about 9pm the sky started to clear and the temperature got a little on the chilly side, we decided to abandon the far trap and there really was not much of note in it, off the top of my head just 4 moths which was terrible.

The same had to be said for the suitcase Actinic, a small handful of Setaceous Hebrew Characters was all it had to offer.

The brightest of them all up by the barn, faired much better with about 15 moths in total, again not a great deal. Of the species we trapped of note were a second brood Gold Triangle, Oak Nycteoline and Acleris rhombana

At Gadesprings, it was even worse with just 10 moths to two traps, best of all was a single Rush Veneer.

All in all it was nice to add some Autumn moths to the site lists.


Westbrook Hay/Hay Wood - Hemel Hempstead - 1x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x 160w MBT Trap &
1x 80w Actinic Trap and 1x 22w Actinic/26w CFL Trap run from 6.45pm until 10.30pm

Macro Moths


4x Red-green Carpet

6x Barred Sallow
2x Chestnut
1x Setaceous Hebrew Character
2x Snout
2x Large Yellow Underwing
2x Common Marbled Carpet
1x Pink-barred Sallow
1x Deep-brown Dart
1x Lesser Yellow Underwing
2x Yellow-line Quaker
1x November Moth sp
1x Rosy Rustic
1x Satellite
1x Angle Shades
 
Micro Moths
 
2x Acleris rhombana

1x Oak Nycteoline
2x Acleris emargana
1x Epiphyas postvittana
1x Acleris sparsana
1x Hypsopygia costalis

Gadesprings - Hemel Hempstead - 1x 125w MV Robinson & 1x 22w Actinic/26w CFL Trap run from 6.30pm until 11.00am

Macro Moths


1x Large Yellow Underwing

1x Common Wainscot
1x Beaded Chestnut
1x Lesser Yellow Underwing
1x Barred Sallow
1x Yellow-line Quaker
1x Satellite
2x Setaceous Hebrew Character

Micro Moths


1x Nomophila noctuella


Oak Nycteoline

No comments:

Post a Comment