Running two lights in my back garden (two nights ago) was producing reasonable numbers of moths and everything was fine, so I left them on and retired to bed. Around 4.00 a.m. I heard rain. Cue a long and very wet saga in the dark. I don't like running lights in the rain. The moths seem to be fine with the rain, but the water on top of the trap and the wet sheets destroy them so quickly.
Before all this I potted up three particular individuals:
This one, which is surely in the running for 'most boring-looking moth' is a Lesser Wax Moth (Achroia grisella), and is significant to me because I don't think I've seen it before. Curiously, I think I'm demonstrating false memory, because I thought I'd seen it before, but no records nor photos are registered.
Epinotia nisella comes in several named forms and this on is form decorana:
Not an uncommon moth, but I'm not sure I've seen that version before.
The third one is always contentious:
I'm calling Prays ruficeps. What do you think?
The equipment hasn't dried out yet.
From what I can see in the picture I would be calling that Prays ruficeps, Andy. In the dark form of P.fraxinella you can still see the outline of the markings of the normal form but in this picture it looks uniformly dark to me.
ReplyDeleteI avoid using white sheets in the garden if rain is expected. As you say, they are lethal to moths when soaked through and it is not a pleasant sight to see lots of them glued upside-down to the materiel. For the last several years I've always run one of the two garden traps under a gazebo which is up permanently from May through to October, so I've always got somewhere relatively dry even in the worst of weather conditions. This is usually a home-made 125wt MV trap which uses a large "Really Useful Box" to hold the catch and, having a flat top, isn't at all waterproof. Having the light blocked off immediately above the trap doesn't seem to affect my catches, although of course it may be the second trap (usually an actinic) which is drawing the moths into the garden in the first place!