Saturday 22 February 2020

Finemere Wood, Bucks

With the temperature holding at around 8C and with the rides there well sheltered from the high winds, last night I carried out another three-hour trapping session from dusk at nearby Finemere Wood.  The results were much as you'd expect in oak woodland at the end of February with just over 400 moths attracted to the MV light, more than half of them being the only micro species, Tortricodes alternella.  The Orthosias were just starting to make their presence felt and the Small Quaker total could easily have been much higher if I'd stayed for longer because they were still appearing regularly as I packed up.  The full list was as follows:  Tortricodes alternella (212), Yellow Horned (7), Shoulder Stripe (3), March Moth (10), Small Brindled Beauty (41), Pale Brindled Beauty (7), Oak Beauty (1), Spring Usher (11), Dotted Border (24), Early Moth (1), Chestnut (10), Clouded Drab (2), Common Quaker (10), Small Quaker (67) & Hebrew Character (1).  One of the Clouded Drabs was a really smart example of one of the less frequent forms.

Yellow Horned, Finemere Wood 21st February

Oak Beauty, Finemere Wood 21st February

Clouded Drab, Finemere Wood 21st February

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks   

2 comments:

  1. Only Orthosias for me the last two nights. Thursday night was not very windy, but cold, and I got only two moths: a Common Quaker and a Clouded Drab fully honouring its name. Both came to the trap in the unsheltered position in the garden. Last night was much milder and very windy (max gust 41 knots), but I ended up with a dozen Common Quaker and two Hebrew Character. All except two of them came to the trap that is well sheltered by a row of large Leyland cypress.

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  2. Much the same in the garden here, with various combinations of Agonopterix heracliana, Clouded Drab, Common Quaker & Hebrew Character over the last three nights. Seven individual moths last night, with two Common Quakers seen at 6am this morning battling their way through the grass on the lawn en route to the light during gusts in excess of 45mph!

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