Bucks 10km Square Records

Hopefully of passing interest, at least to readers in Buckinghamshire, is this updated map showing the number of moth species recorded in each 10km square which lies wholly or partially within VC24 (data now correct to the end of 2020):  

1000+ species should really be achievable in every 10km square.  We're already there with nine of the 36 squares and at least two more could well have passed that total when this year's data is added, but a little bit of work still needs to be done elsewhere.  We're not overly concerned with the poor showings in SP53 or TL00 and TL01 because only a very small percentage of each of those squares lies within Bucks.  In the case of SP53 it is just a tiny area on the eastern side of Brackley which VC24 lays claim to, although there is potential to increase the species total significantly there just with a few leaf-mine records (the micro count is currently zero!). 

The best recorded square is SU98 which includes Stoke Common and Burnham Beeches, the Rothamsted Insect Survey trap at Burnham Beeches having been instrumental in providing a good number of new micro records for the county post-millennium.  Surprisingly, SU98 doesn't have the highest macro-moth count and actually lies in fourth place with 519 species when looking at them alone.  Six squares have achieved 500 or more macro species and top of that league is SP84 (northern Milton Keynes) with 548.    

The area of most concern is still SP82 (total species count 384) which is by far the most under-recorded 10km square wholly within Bucks.  To be fair the area doesn't have very much going for it, being mainly arable farmland with no sizeable woodland at all.  Compared to elsewhere it is also poorly served by garden recorders, but it must still be possible to find many more species within the square than have been seen so far.  That's a task for 2022 if anyone nearby fancies some trapping away from home.  Better still would be to find potential new recorders who actually live in places like Whitchurch, Wing, Stewkley or Stoke Hammond! 

Update:  at the request of Phil Tizzard (see comments below) I've added a second 10km square map showing the macro-moth totals.