Creatures of the Night

We occasionally get called upon to run moth traps for public night-time "Creatures of the Night" walks by organisations such as the National Trust or the City of London and last night it was this year's event for the latter organisation, the owners of Burnham Beeches, Bucks.  Martin Albertini has been doing this one annually for quite a while and I've joined him with traps for the last four or five years.  It is always guaranteed to be the coldest or wettest night no matter in which month they schedule the walk and last night proved to be no exception!  It had been raining for a good part of the day but, although still very damp underfoot, stopped to give us a relatively dry period in which to get set up, but then the drizzle came back and everything got soaked.  However, at least it was warm-ish and there were plenty of frogs and toads for the 20+ visitors to see!  The moths did fly although there were few of them, so we packed up not long after everyone had departed, meaning that the lights were on for only two hours rather than our standard three.  My own two traps on the remnant heathland managed just short of 50 species which seemed a reasonable return in the circumstances.  Similar to our experience at nearby Littleworth Common a week ago, only Neofaculta ericetella and True Lover's Knot were true habitat specialists.  However, here the appearance of a single example of the nationally scarce Rosy Marbled, one of our smallest macro-moths, made the night's trapping a worthwhile exercise.

Rosy Marbled, Burnham Beeches 29th May

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks