Sunday, 8 March 2020

First time for everything


Well this has never happened to me before.  Surprise No.1: the lamp, bulbholder and rainshield blew off my MV trap in the night. Bigger surprise No.2: the light was still working when I went out at 7am, and still is.  There were two Common Quakers in the eggboxes and a single March Moth on top of the light's rainshield.

These are my first three macros of 2020 when I haven't trapped since the beginning of January. February saw a solitary micro, below, found by chance in our shed when I banged the door. I think that it is Agonopterix heracliana but guess it could be A.ciliella. Sadly, it is long gone and so the world and I will never know.  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon
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3 comments:

  1. Tim Arnold8 March 2020 at 22:56

    Hello Martin. A similar thing happened to me exactly a month ago: sometime during the evening a gust of wind blew over the trap and the table on which it had been standing. The actinic tube ended up on the ground under the trap - but somehow it wasn't broken. I noticed this just before I went to bed and so I was able to reassemble everything. Unlike you, I found no moths in the trap that evening, nor the next morning. On windy evenings since then I have added some bracing to prevent a recurrence.

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  2. Dave Wilton9 March 2020 at 12:43

    Oh dear! Not an unheard-of situation though and I've had it happen to me a couple of times. Once was with an MV Robinson in what I thought was sheltered woodland but a sudden gust still managed to dismantle the trap in much the same way as happened to you. The light continued to run but the way the cone fell meant that one of the legs holding the rain-shield came into contact with the bulb and it quickly became distorted as the plastic started to melt. Not ideal and wouldn't happen now with the much more robust bolted rain-shield struts used by suppliers like ALS. The other time was at home using a twin-30wt actinic Robinson which is even more susceptible to the wind having much larger vanes, but again the bulbs suffered no damage. These days, if I'm trapping on particularly windy nights, I place a couple of bricks inside the trap and secure the cone with a couple of strategically-placed bungee cords. At last, a use for that annoying lip around the edge of the Robinson base!

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  3. Martin Wainwright9 March 2020 at 17:10

    Thanks both - reassuring that others have survived similar upsets. I'll see if I can do a bit of Heath Robinson work myself. I realise too that I miscalculated my tally of 2020 moths. Id forgotten that I lit the lamp on 12 January and attracted a Pale Brindled Beauty and two days earlier Penny spotted a Common Plume in long grass. So my overall total is a sensational six. All warm wishes and roll on Spring! M

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