Homefield Wood near Marlow, Bucks

Marc Botham and I had an excellent evening here on Friday, running four MV lights for the usual three hours in the area managed by BBOWT.  Generally speaking, once we get into August there's a steep drop-off in species (especially micros) as we head towards autumn and I was expecting it to be even worse in this strange year, but each of my two traps ended up catching more than 100 species (160+ between them) and Marc's will have taken us past 200 altogether, so a very respectable count.  This was no doubt helped by the two different habitat types on offer (chalk grassland and mixed woodland) as well as the warm night.

Blastobasis adustella and Oncocera semirubella were the most abundant micros (40+ of the latter in my traps alone) and it was good to see Evergestis pallidata which isn't recorded all that often in Bucks although this is one of its known sites.

Evergestis pallidata, Homefield Wood 7th August

Marc had seen a Jersey Tiger flying around the gate while waiting for me to arrive but strangely we didn't get a single one in the traps.  Oak Processionary turned up though, as did a single Gypsy Moth (all males).  Easily the smartest moth of the night was Clouded Magpie with three individuals recorded, while a double-digit count of second-brood Mocha was nice to see and included the diminutive specimen illustrated below with a wing-length of barely 10mm.

Mocha, Homefield Wood 7th August

Clouded Magpie, Homefield Wood 7th August

Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks