Thursday, 20 May 2021

Birthday lures


I promised my grandchildren yesterday that I would put their entomological birthday cards into the trap last night and - hey Presto! My first two hawk moths arrived. Very unusually in my experience, one was resting on the grass outside the trap, unmolested by birds although a conspicuous object to the human eye.

This belated debut contrasts with last year when I had recorded all my regular hawks except the Privet and Hummingbird  by 21 May - that's Poplar, Eyed, Lime, Pine, Elephant and Small Elephant - and the first Poplar came on the night of 25 April. 

To find a later debut than this year's, I have to go back to 2013, our first Summer here after moving from Leeds, when the first hawk, also a Poplar, arrived on 22 May. Since then, the dates have been (from 2014) May 2, 1, 12, 6, 7 and 10. 

Looking at other records, I get the impression that last year was the exception, but arrivals here do continue to be very slow. Apart from the hawks, there were only three Muslin moths and a Rustic Shoulder-knot in last night's trap.  Martin Wainwright, Thrupp, Oxon

1 comment:

  1. That's nice. I had my first and so far only hawk-moth of the year (Poplar again) last Saturday night and that was also sat outside the trap, but at 4am when I secured the trap the birds around here seemed more interested in shouting to their friends from the tree-tops than starting to look for breakfast!

    Oh, and Many Happy Returns!

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