Just one good moth...

...is all it takes!  I ran two MV lights for the usual three hours in Finemere Wood, Bucks last night and they performed better than expected under clear skies and a rapidly falling temperature, each one bringing in more than 100 species.  However, there was little of particular interest.  Minor Shoulder-knot was the most numerous macro-moth, a single Lappet was as always a very welcome sight, my first Black Arches of the season was also nice while a Dotted Fan-foot in each trap was a new species for the very extensive site list.  Large Emerald did appear but I had also hoped to see the similar-sized Orange Moth which used to be a regular at Finemere but I haven't recorded it there since 2017.  However, one of the last moths to be identified inside my Robinson trap at the turning circle in the middle of the wood was a smart male Chalk Carpet!  You would be forgiven for thinking that this Nationally Scarce species of chalk grassland is very out-of-place in the middle of ancient woodland on clay but this is actually the third one I've recorded there after examples in 2012 and 2015.  I suspect that there's an established colony on the adjacent Calvert land-fill site where some of the old brick-making excavations, into which Aylesbury's rubbish is still being tipped, go down well into the calcareous rock beneath the clay.  

Chalk Carpet, Finemere Wood 14th July

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks