Good Night to get Started

Last night's remarkably mild conditions seemed a good opportunity to get started with "away trapping" by recording in a local wet woodland which hasn't been looked at seriously for about a decade.  I took a single MV light and ran it there for just the usual three hours in the hope of ticking off Mottled Umber and Spring Usher, but neither turned up!  Perhaps both are virtually over by now, having started well before Christmas?  Amongst the species noted (including Tortricodes alternella and Early Moth both new for me for this year) were several March Moth.  There's nothing unusual in that as there are many examples of it appearing in Bucks during January (rather appropriately, our CMR holding the record with one on 6th January 1981) but this is the earliest I personally have seen it by a couple of weeks.  The big surprise, though, was to get a fresh Engrailed.  This does appear to be the first January record for the county.

March Moth, 24th January

Engrailed, 24th January

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks