Tuesday 5 May 2015

A gift in the rain

Despite relentless rain for most if not all of last night, I finally registered more than 2 moths in my garden trap. Better still, one of them was a species I have been very keen on catching locally since last years Oxford records - Toadflax Brocade. It looks a little sorry for itself and the morning weather is not condusive to photographs really so will try and take one later and upload it. Other species included Brimstone, Common Pug, Double-striped Pug, Lesser Treble-bar, Shuttle-shaped Dart, Dagger spp, Notocelia (Epiblema) cynosbatella and Epiphyas postvittana - so not hugely amazing, but I'm not complaining :). Marc Botham, Didcot


Toadflax Brocade - Didcot, 4th May 2015.

update on Dagger sp: gen det. 05/05/15 - Grey Dagger

4 comments:

  1. Perhaps you should only trap in relentless rain Marc?

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  2. :) Indeed - by far my best garden results so far in 2015. I think I might be heading your way this weekend (weather permitting) - I've had to postpone both attempts at an April/May session so far because it has been too cold. Will email you when know more

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  3. At 5am here at Westcott it looked as though I was going to be quite pleased with the night's results too, despite torrential rain for most of it, because there was a double-digit count of moths sitting around outside the trap, on the power cable, etc. However, subsequent inspection proved that only one moth (the inevitable Hebrew Character) had actually made it inside the trap! Brimstone (2), Pebble Prominent (1), Swallow Prominent (2), Chocolate-tip (1), Pale Tussock (2) & Hebrew Character (4). Sooner or later there's going to be an explosion of new species (...I hope).

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  4. I am missing the prominents. I've never lived anywhere where I didn't start getting most prominent species by now. David Roy had Swallow and lesser Swallow a while back in Crowmarsh and I found Swallow twice in Wallingford dead on the road suggesting there's plenty about locally, but none in Didcot - the only prom was a Pale Prom some time ago now. I did put out traps at Warburg on Sunday night and had Lesser Swallow, Great, Coxcomb, and Iron all singles, and a pair of Lobster Moth, but despite 2 MV's and 2 Actinics left overnight numbers were extremely low and the weather was warm and cloudy all night. I eagerly await this explosion :)

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