Upper Thames Moths: Mothing in the Clouds

Martin Albertini and I ran traps on the Grangelands nature reserve and its adjacent rifle range in the Bucks Chilterns last night. The forecast had seemed quite acceptable, but unfortunately the drizzle lingered longer than expected during the afternoon, as did low cloud over the Chilterns. The weather was reasonable when we set up the lights but shortly after dark the cloud descended again and we were left operating in decidedly reduced visibility. Not only was it wet underfoot but in the cloud everything above ground soon became very damp too, even though it wasn't raining! We were at first heartened by the tremendous amount of moth activity, all four traps soon becoming very busy indeed, but after a while it was clear that only a few species were turning up. Take away Small Elephant Hawk-moth (100+), Heart & Dart (150+), Shears (150+), Dark Arches (500+) & Reddish Light Arches (50+) and we weren't left with a great deal. It was definitely a noctuid night, with geometers very sparse and micros almost non-existent apart from grass moths. The final total did in fact come to about 90 species but it didn't seem that many while we were there!

Small Elephant Hawk-moth, Grangelands 25th June

Amongst all these common moths were a few nice species, though. Lappet was nice to see, the first Chilterns record for at least eight years, as was the uncommon brown form of Lime Hawk-moth. A double-digit count of Green Arches was also good to achieve and some of them were actually still green rather than having faded to their usual dull grey!