Tuesday 8 November 2016

Garden Moth Survey.

The G.M.S., which I take part in, involves putting our trap out every week, on the same night where possible, in the same position, from the beginning of March to the beginning of November. Comparing year on year catches for comparison becomes possible.

The last two years are:

                                           2015                                              2016
Species                                165                                                172
Total Moths                        2,680                                             1,269

Species have increased very slightly but the total is down just over 50%.
A large amount of the missing moths are accounted for by vast reductions in some of my gardens more common species. See below;

Dark Arches                   -75%
Large Yellow U/W         -65%
Heart and Dart                -65%
Common Rustic              -83%

Does these figures look familiar to other mothers or has it just been a poor year up here.

Steve Lockey (Garsington)


4 comments:

  1. It is interesting to see some other people's results. I took part in the GMS for the first time this year so don't have any comparable data from previous years. My GMS totals for 2016 were 2720 individuals and 193 species. Despite putting the trap out on many extra nights there were quite a few species missing this year that I would have expected to have caught.

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  2. Hi Andy,
    It's interesting that your totals this year matched my last years.It could be a difference in moth traps of course, mine is a 60W actinic Skinner. There again it could be a generally bad year here.

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  3. I'm not a GMS participant but overall numbers were definitely down here. I won't know accurate details for a while yet, though, as I'm just a little bit behind with record input (beginning of July!).

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  4. Steve, I have been using a 125W MV Robinson trap for the GMS which may help to account for the slightly bigger catches. I have also been doing an experiment this year using a 20W Eco bulb supplied by Watkins and Doncaster in an attempt to get data that will allow a comparison between the two types of bulb. I have not yet analysed the results (a job for the Winter months) but will share the results when they are ready.

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