Finemere Wood, Bucks

I've been carrying out regular moth surveys at BBOWT's Finemere Wood for seven years now and have seen 645 different species there over that period.  There are historic records from the wood of a further 50 moths that I've yet to find but, while this number is still diminishing very slowly, a number of them will be species that we can almost guarantee are no longer present (Dark-barred Twin-spot Carpet, Dark Marbled Carpet, Marbled Pug, Triple-spotted Clay, Dotted Clay & Lesser-spotted Pinion, to name but a few).

During the course of 21 trapping visits to Finemere in 2013 more than 360 species were recorded and they included 38 new to the site list.  As would be expected, the majority of the additions were micros, amongst which were a few leaf-miners including three of the birch-feeding Eriocrania species (unimaculella, sangii & semipurpurella all found as larvae on 16th May), but there were also some interesting adults such as Acrocercops brongniardella (22nd September), Caryocolum tricolorella (31st July), Syncopacma larseniella (31st July) & Nephopterix angustella (5th September).  The pick of the larger moths were Gem (8th October), Dotted Chestnut (14th April), Webb's Wainscot (5th September), Small Rufous (31st July) & Waved Black (31st July).  DAVE WILTON

Caryocolum tricolorella, Finemere Wood

Small Rufous, Finemere Wood

 

Webb's Wainscot, Finemere Wood