Pre-back mess up, I did a field trip to Cavenham Heath, the nearest nature reserve to me located in neighbouring Suffolk. I was joined by good friend Leslie Gardiner.
We arrived at just after 8pm, and I did a brief 10 minutes of netting and sweeping the vegetation. To say there were moths everywhere would have been an understatement, and in hindsight I should have arrived half hour ago!
I netted 8 species just standing by the car, only 2 of which would be later attracted to the traps.
But with time against us and with some welcome cloud rolling in, it was time to setup the traps.
I ran 3 lights and Leslie ran 1, perfectly enough for the time that we had.
The breeze that was persistent all day had dropped, the cloud was enough to obscure the moon and it actually felt warm up until 11pm. We did get some light heavy droplets of rain at times, but it didn't come to much.
97 species was the grand total, nearly getting to the 100 mark, although we did start packing up at midnight as it felt a lot cooler and we lost quite a chunk of cloud.
I recorded two new species for my records, the very local Grey Carpet and a stunning Yellow Belle.
Other good macros that we saw, were literally hundreds of Narrow-winged Pugs, several Fox Moths and Great Prominents, and 3 mint Birch Mochas.
Micros did not disappoint either, with species such as Coleophora violacea, Ectoedemia minimella, Lobesia reliquana, Neofaculta ericetella, Phylloporia bistrigella & Pseudococcyx posticana all putting in a appearance.
My favourite micro was a completely brown and obscurely marked Teleiopsis diffinis, an absolute corker of a form and one of at least 10 seen at the traps and netted.
A very good session indeed and a place that always does well despute thin sandy soils and rapidly falling temperatures.
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