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 9 June 2018

Field Trip - Home Wood - 30/05/18

My first field trip of the year and I joined up with Matt from Upper Caldecote to hit up Home Wood with a collection of traps and a sheet.
Unfortunately the evening started a bit confusingly, where I jokingly sent a photo of myself holding my son saying  'That it looks like i'm staying in tonight' (As a joke)... Matt picked the message up and immediately responded saying can I still make it. I didn't see this reply until 30 minutes later and in that time Matt had rang his Dad and had turned around from the site and had gone home.
To say I felt bad for pulling a prank was an understatement.
Lionel wished me goo luck on the phone and said 'I hope you trip over the gate on the way in' ...I guess I deserved that comment :D

Anyhow, drama over and next time I won't make a silly joke :/

We set up just in time for night fall with 4 traps and a sheet. The weather was pretty perfect, no wind and although the day really struggled to get warm and by lungtime it was still only 14 degrees, by 7pm it was pushing 18 with a few breaks in the cloud allowing the sun to warm things up but not losing much cloud at all things were really looking up for us.

Indeed it was pretty damn good considering this was earlier in the year than we normally blitz this woodland.

The list is below with several species still pending. 

There are several new species I believe for the County of Bedfordshire

New species for me were Ancylis diminutana and Cydia illutana (So far).

41 Macro and 55 Micro species so far

Catch Report - 30/05/18 - Home Wood - Nr Upper Caldecote - 1x 250w Frosted MV Robinson Trap, 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x twin 20w Wemite Actinic + 1x 40w Actinic & 15w LED corn light and 1x 80w MV on tripod with sheet

Macro Moths

Angle Shades
Beautiful hook-tip
Bordered white
Brimstone Moth
Brindled White-spot
Brown Rustic
Clouded Silver
Common Carpet
Common Marbled Carpet
Common Pug
Common Swift
Common White Wave
Coronet
Coxcomb Prominent
Cream Wave
Dingy Shell
Dwarf Pug
Figure of Eighty
Flame Carpet
Flame Shoulder
Garden Carpet
Gold Swift
Green Carpet
Green Pug
Green Silver lines
Grey-pine Carpet
Ingrailed Clay
Iron Prominent
Light Emerald
Lime Hawk-moth
Lobster Moth
Maiden's Blush
Marbled Brown
Marbled Minor sp
Marbled White-spot
Middle-barred Minor
Mottled Pug
Ochreous Pug
Orange Footman
Pale Oak Beauty
Pale Prominent
Pale Tussock
Peppered Moth
Poplar Grey
Poplar Lutestring
Puss Moth
Red Twin-spot Carpet
Rustic Shoulder-knot
Scorched Carpet
Scorched Wing
Seraphim
Setaceous Hebrew character
Silver-Y
Silver-ground Carpet
Snout
Spectacle
Spruce Carpet
Straw Dot
Treble Lines
White Ermine

Micro Moths

Acentria ephemerella
Adela reamurella
Ancylis diminutana
Ancylis mitterbacheriana
Aphomia sociella
Argyresthia laevigatella/glabratella
Argyresthia pruniella
Argyresthia spinosella
Caloptilia alchimiella/robustella
Capua vulgana
Celypha lacunana
Cochylis atricapitana
Coleophora caespititiella (Gen Det)
Coleophora laricella (Gen Det)
Crambus lathoniellus
Cryptoblabes bistriga
Cydia illutana
Epinotia tedella
Elachista sp
Hedya pruniana
Incurvaria oehlmanniella
Lathronympha strigana
Monopis laevigella
Nemapogon cloacella
Nematopogon metaxella
Nemophora degeerella
Notocelia cynosbatella
Notocelia trimaculana
Pammene prob ignorata
Parapoynx stratiotata
Parornix sp
Plutella xylostella
Prays fraxinella
Pseudargyrotoza conwagana
Pseudoswammerdamia combinella
Ptycholoma lecheana
Rhyacionia pinivorana
Scoparia ambigualis
Scoparia basistrigalis
Scrobipalpa costella
Syndemis musculana
Teleiodes luculella
Tinea semifulvella
Tortrix viridana
Udea olivalis

Ancylis diminutana - New to Beds

Argyresthia laevigatella/glabratella

Cydia illutana - New to Beds

Cydia sp

Dingy Shell

Elachista sp

Marbled Brown

Pammene prob ignorata

Parornix sp

2 comments:

  1. I love spotting moths in my local pub's beer garden

    ReplyDelete
  2. They will be evetywhere this time of year, hope you've found some good ones :)

    ReplyDelete