Away trapping again

It is getting towards the busy time of year now for trapping sites away from home.  Last night I made another visit to a private wood in the far north of Bucks on the edge of Silverstone race-course.  It had been a nice warm day and the temperature held up throughout the evening, but a prolonged heavy shower just before it got dark made me wonder if that would reduce the numbers of moths flying.  Far from it, as it happens, and although few were seen in any great quantity I recorded around 80 species altogether, the highest count anywhere so far this year.  There were no real surprises but it was good to get a double-digit count of Cream Wave, three Devon Carpets put in an appearance again (discovered here last year, still quite uncommon in our area) and Brindled White-spot also turned up.  More than 20 different species of micro visited the traps too. 

Devon Carpet, 17th May

Brindled White-spot, 17th May

Digressing slightly from the moths, it is currently Cockchafer time of year and last night each of the traps attracted good numbers of these rather large but endearing beetles.  You can generally hear them coming, buzzing their way through the vegetation, which does give an opportunity to divert them from the light but that is a pointless exercise really because they always come back and end up blundering about, disturbing everything in sight inside the trap!  Of slightly more (passing) interest last night were a couple of examples of the enormous crane-fly Tipula maxima, the largest of the British species.  Considering that this is supposed to be reasonably common in damp woodland, a habitat where I seem to spend a lot of time with the moth trap, it is something I rarely see.

Tipula maxima, 17th May

Dave Wilton Westcott, Bucks