A Blog for moth recorders in Bucks, Berks and Oxon
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
"Second" County Record
There was a BIG meeting at the start of June last year at Jordans "Chiltern Woodland Burial Park". The moth trapping was a distinctly quiet affair as the weather turned quite chilly early. Whilst the old diehards of myself and Martin Albertini sat in our chairs and tried to keep warm, the younger enthusiasts ran around the trap site every time there was a small moth flying by (thanks Rob P and Dave M) and netted most. There seemed to be an endless potting of tiny Parornix moths from this. Well, thanks to their efforts, one turned out to be a fourth county record of Parornix carpinella. The other 3 records are from Burnham Beeches Rothamsted trap, back in 2002-3 (I have yet to do 2004-2009). So this is the second location. It looks just like all the other Parornix species we get, but this one feeds on Hornbeam. Attached is an image of its bits. The bits also all look much the same too! The long straight line going at 45 degrees at the base is the end of the aedeagus, one of the diagnostics. Peter Hall
Thanks Peter, I like the "younger enthusiasts" comment - at 49 and 10 months, its much appreciated. Also compliments on the photo - lots of skill and time involved to produce that image of such a tiny subject.
ReplyDeleteYes, the art of taking these images took me about 4 years to learn and a lot of patience. This image was about 120 high resolution jpeg images (each about 8mb in size), run through a focus stacking software programme to produce 4 in focus images, then Photoshop to put them together, clean up the background and label. Took about 50 minutes once ready to photograph.
ReplyDelete...I'm only 9 days older than Rob.
ReplyDeleteWe are hoping to get together another session at CWBP this year at roughly the same time; hopefully it'll be a bit warmer and maybe we'll find something else interesting :)