Allowed out at last

Unfortunately, nearly all of the places I have requested permission to trap at regularly this year belong to Forestry England or BBOWT, neither of whom have re-opened their sites to surveyors yet.  Luckily, I had also arranged to do some work at a private chalk down-land hillside at Ibstone, Bucks (although actually in VC23) and my first visit there took place last night.  It was nice to get out again!  80+ species were recorded and although micros were in short supply the macros (62 species) performed quite well.  The traps were inundated with Heart & Dart, Shears, Light Brocade & Treble Lines but the star of the evening has to have been a Chamomile Shark, only the second I've ever seen (but see the Edit below).  Other species included Pebble Hook-tip, Mocha, Grass Rivulet, Dwarf Pug, Shaded Pug, Peppered Moth, White-pinion Spotted, Lime Hawk-moth, Elephant Hawk-moth, Small Elephant Hawk-moth, Marbled Brown, Lobster Moth, Ingrailed Clay, Shoulder-striped Wainscot, Green Silver-lines, Spectacle & Straw Dot.

Elephant & Small Elephant Hawk-moths, Ibstone 20th May

Shark, Ibstone 20th May

Edit:  Actually, that's an early Shark and not a late Chamomile Shark!  I was so confident that I'd remembered correctly how to separate those two species (all to do with whether or not the lines extend into the fringe) that I didn't bother to check - there's a lesson there!  Thanks very much to Martin Townsend for pointing out the error.     

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks