Pine beauty and friends

 In view of the warm weather, I ran my traps in the garden on Monday night and on Wednesday night.  Monday night had been rather disappointing, but I was quite hopeful for Wednesday night, even though the weather forecast said the cold front was going to move through during the night.

Between the two traps, I caught 44 moths of a dozen species.  I am not getting the large numbers of Small Quakers that other people have reported: the five that I caught was the highest total this year.  Double-striped Pugs first appeared on Monday night and I had six on Wednesday. There was a single Chestnut - the first I have seen for a couple of months - and I was happy to see an Oak Nycteoline.

The best moth was my first-ever Pine Beauty.  I suspect that both it and the Oak Nycteoline were feeding on the catkins on the adjacent willow.

Pine Beauty
Newton Longville, 31 March

The warm weather also brought insects of other orders.  Ichneumons have been coming for a couple of weeks: I don't attempt to identify them.  The first caddisfly (Trichoptera) came on 27th, and on Wednesday night I had two.  Using a two-page PDF written by Ian Wallace and Sharon Flint that covers the separation of species in the Stenophylax and Micropterna genera, I managed to use a hand-lens to identify that both of the caddis were Stenophylax permistus (one male and one female).  This breeds in seasonal ponds, and there is one in the field 10 metres away from the garden.  There were also three leaf-hoppers that I suspect were Populicerus laminatus (Hemiptera): I must try to work my way through a lengthy key to confirm this.

I am a little concerned that my LED light might not be as electrically efficient as I had hoped.  After I had gone through the traps and packed them away, I came indoors and happened to glance at the display on our smart meter.  This shows the value of electricity and gas consumed since midnight.  The central heating hadn't come on by then, so the only consumption had been electricity.  The actinic light had been running from a battery, so apart from the fridge and some low-power items like chargers, the only device that would have consumed power would have been my LED light.  Either SSE were playing an April Fool prank on me, or I have an explanation for why the LEDs get a bit hot.

Tim Arnold

Newton Longville, Bucks