Field Trip - Bramfield Woods - 14/05/19 - Hertfordshire

Well, despite the beautiful warm and sunny days that we have been blessed with recently, the nights have been the complete polar opposite (in fact it was nearly hat, gloves and scarves temperature by midnight, and actually felt like polar conditions in certain areas of the woods). 
With the sun not quite strong enough to sustain the evening temperatures at this time of year, if you have a clear sky and bright moon, all of that warmth disappears and you are left with bitter conditions, something the moths unfortunately aren't very fond  of!

Still, we soldiered on and set up 8 lights in the North-east corner of the woods, hoping that the elevated areas that had been exposed more to the evening sun would hold their warmth more, we were sort of right, but it just wasn't warm enough, and by packing up time at midnight it was a mere 5 degrees.

Moths came to the lights fairly quickly, in fact one particular species (Small White Wave) was on the wing well before dark and I must have counted over 20 milling about.

Things tailed off at around 11pm and we started packing up the less productive traps.

Some great species were still observed and no less than 36 species were noted in just over 3 hours in harsh conditions, so we couldn't really grumble!

In fact, I always say that it only takes one moth to make it all worthwhile and again we struck gold with a single Cedestis subfasciella, albeit very worn and missing half of it's wing.. by the time I got round to photographing it the next day it had unfortunately expired.
There are only 5 previous Hertfordshire records, another Pine feeding moth, oweing to the great mature stands of Coniferous trees on site.
It was also a new moth for me.

Others species of note were two fresh Lime Hawk-moths, good amount of both Maiden's Blush and Clay Triple-lines (allowing easy comparison between the two) and a few melanic spcimens for good measure, Pale Oak Beauty & Clouded-bordered Brindle.

Hopefully, weather conditions at night will start to finally improve now.

28 Macro and 8 Micro species recorded.

Total : 36 species 

13 species were added to the site list which now stands at 109 species for 2019.

Catch Report - 14/05/19 - Hertfordshire - 1x 250w Clear MV Robinson Trap, 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x twin 20w Wemite Actinic & 40w Actinic Trap & 1x 160w Mercury Blended Robinson Trap - 5 traps in total + 3 extra traps provided by Trevor

Macro Moths

Brimstone Moth 5
Brindled Pug 5
Brown Silver-lines 1
Chocolate-tip 2
Clay Triple-lines 5
Clouded Border 1
Clouded-bordered Brindle 1
Common White Wave 4
Dwarf Pug 10
Green Carpet 1
Iron Prominent 1
Least Black Arches 1
Lesser Swallow Prominent 3
Lime Hawk-moth 2
Lobster Moth 1
Maiden's Blush 3
Nut-tree Tussock 20
Ochreous Pug 1
Orange Footman 15
Pale Oak Beauty 2 
Pale Tussock 5
Pebble Hook-tip 4
Scalloped Hazel 1
Seraphim 3
Small White Wave 20
Spectacle 1
Spruce Carpet 3
Tawny-barred Angle 1

Micro Moths

Bucculatrix ulmella 1
Cedestis subfasciella 1
Endrosis sarcitrella 1
Epinotia tetraquetrana 1
Eucosma cana 1 Nematopogon swammerdamella 1
Syndemis musculana 2
Tinea triontella 1

The 250w Clear Robinson Trap

125w MV traps

Cedestis subfasciella

Clouded-bordered Brindle Ab.combusta

Epinotia tetraquetrana

Iron Prominent

Lime Hawk-moth

Pale Oak Beauty

Spruce Carpet

Tawny-barred Angle