Chestnuts

Thursday night I did my March trapping for Harcourt Arboretum because it was so mild. The omens were good when I got home and my garden trap already had several moths in it (which if you've seen any of my previous posts you will appreciate is a considerable improvement on recent times). Whilst Harcourt yielded a fair number of moths the species list was distinctly lacking several of those expected and consisted of nothing unexpected or especially exciting, but it was nice to start seeing a trap full of moths again nevertheless: Dotted Border, March Moth, Small Brindled Beauty, Oak Beauty, Chestnut, Dark Chestnut, Hebrew Character, Small Quaker, Common Quaker, Clouded Drab, Yellow-horned, Acleris notana/ferrugana, Acleris hastiana, Ypsolopha ustella. It was my garden trap that provided me the nicest catch, though again nothing unexpected, but was nice to get a full set of the Conistra species resident locally as depicted below (and they all landed just like that honestly...:)). March Moth (1), Dotted Border (2), Clouded Drab (4), Hebrew Character (3), Common Quaker (1) and Agonopterix heracliana (2) joined the party making it by far the best night so far this year. The previous night also marked the first 2014 garden appearance of Agonopterix alstromeriana, which I subsequently found a trio of in the Rothamsted trap at CEH Wallingford, and another at MV light in the garden last night along with first a garden record of Diurnea fagella. Marc Botham, Benson

Dark Chestnut, Chestnut and Dotted Chestnut at Lonesome Farm.