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 7 May 2020

Latest moths from my patch

Another night and another really small catch, expected for my garden unfortunately at this time of year and also with a real dip in temperature and a huge bright moon.
 At least I trapped a new for year species in the form of a Small Waved Umber, making 94 species now for this year which is still 22 ahead of this time last year.

Tonight looks warm after highs of 23 degrees today and I have been informed from the experts at the weather centre, that it is not due to dip below 10c... we'll see :)

 I did have another hour wander around the local area today, and initially struggled to battle with the wind again, with the branches swaying and my net flailing around, it wasn't looking good!

 Fortunately I found a nice calm area out of the breeze and straight away, I noticed moths flying just on the extremity of a large patch of Bluebells, they were of course the Tortrix moth,
Hysterophora maculosana. I netted at least 6 with more flying around and picked the most vibrant coloured one to bring back hom for a photo, i'll take him/her back tomorrow to the favoured spot.

 I also netted a single Bucculatrix species and a Stigmella that keeps racing around the pot (no photo yet), the Bucculatrix i've had under a hand lens and tried to turn it into cidarella (a moth I took once in Bedfordshire), but it is just a dark ulmella, nevertheless a new species for the year.

Garden species count for 2020 now upto 94.

5 moths of 3 species to 125w MV Robinson Trap min 4c at 5:00am

Catch Report - 06/05/20 - Back Garden - Stevenage - North Herts

Macro Moths

Small Waved Umber 1 [NFY]
Nut-tree Tussock 1


Micro Moths

Emmelina monodactyla 3

Daytime Wander - 07/05/20 - Great Ashby field margins - North Herts

Adela reamurella 20
Bucculatrix ulmella 1
Elachista rufocinerea 1
Esperia sulphurella 1
Hysterophora maculosana 6
Incurvaria masculella 1
Phyllonorycter maestingella 3
phyllonorycter quercifoliella 1
Stigmella sp
Syndemis musculana 2

Bucculatrix ulmella

Hysterophora maculosana

Small Waved Umber

Posted by Bennyboymothman at 20:51

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