Finemere Wood, Bucks

I ran a couple of MV lights at Finemere for the usual three hours last night with two target species in mind.  Thankfully one of them did actually turn up, Oak Lutestring appearing at both traps.  This is not a particularly common species in our area and, so far as Bucks is concerned anyway, if you take out the large number of records from Bernwood Forest and the RIS trap at Burnham Beeches then there aren't all that many regular sites for it left.  The sightings at Bernwood came from work done by Paul Waring in Oakley Wood during 1984/85 and over the past ten years I've trapped that same area quite extensively in September (including last Sunday night) but not found the moth.  I shall keep trying though...

Oak Lutestring, Finemere Wood 4th September

Oak Lutestring, Finemere Wood 4th September

The other target species was Clifden Nonpareil, one of the traps being run next to aspen in the area where a caterpillar was found on 14th July (see here), but there was as yet no sign of the moth.  However, I did get a fresh example of Epinotia maculana for my trouble, an autumnal micro which uses the same food-plant.

Epinotia maculana, Finemere Wood 4th September

More than 60 species were shared between the two lights, including a very good showing of micros, far better in fact than the results from Bernwood three nights earlier.  Further autumnal species amongst the macros included Black Rustic and Brindled Green as well as the very early examples of Brick and Red-line Quaker shown below.


Brick, Finemere Wood 4th September

Red-line Quaker, Finemere Wood 4th September

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks