Ben's Birding Blog

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Moth catch up!

The trouble with not updating my blog at this time of the year results in lots of pictures, mostly of moths to post at some point. This post is something of a photo dump, however some good moths have been added to my life/norfolk list in the past few weeks so I'll try to highlight them too.

Starting with the most recent trapping- on Tuesday morning I found a first for the Yare valley, a Small Dotted Footman, this RDB species is an amazing find and one that many other mothers have been hopeful in finding, so it was a most surprising and exciting find! If it was a bright colourful moth the reception would have been better, but those in the know were suitably impresed. This eclipsed the equally new species for the reserve (as far as i can tell) European corn borer.

Dad and I also went to Winterton once again, the traps were far better this time around, unfortunately I did not get a chance to photograph many of the moths as we had to pot up and then I had to get to work in a bit of a rush, however Archers dart, true lovers knot and Shark are worthy of mention. lots more micros to be identified.

More fen pictures to follow, this night saw many species 160+ including a few goodies, I dont have the complete list as it is currently on holiday. below is a small selection including an odd clouded border, dentated pug, one of 3 Blacknecks, also in the traps were 12 cream bordered green peas, and another fist for the reserve- small mottled willow.

Finally I had a trip to my nans birthday in Essex, dad was kind enough to put a trap out on the saltmarsh and it pulled in some great species (especially for an inland Norfolk mother!)

Sunday, 28 June 2015

110 moth sp and some goodies

A successful moth morning at Strumpshaw on Saturday saw 110 species, a decent haul to look through and it did take a little longer than the allotted event time (I overran by an hour!) but while there were still moths to show I was happy to look through them.

The trap was roughly 70/40 Macro:micro split, the macros were good but it was the micros that really held the interest (for me).

The highlights were a 1st for the 10k square and a first for the reserve, Biselachista albidella and crambus ulignosellus, other new for me were elachista maculicerusella. A tortrix -phalonidia udana or manniana was also taken, udana is a newly discovered species so it would be great to get this, however gen det is needed to be sure, so I may hang on to that one for someone else to have a closer look (dad?).
we had the reedbed pyralid quintet as well as the following; I'm aware there may be limited interest in the following, but it took me a while to id them all so thought i'd share it!

Argyresthia cupressella
Parachronistis albiceps
Olindia schumacherana
Phiaris micana
Clepsis consimilana
Aethes beatricella
Aleimma loeflingiana
Crambus uliginosellus
Biselachista albidella
Elachista maculicerusella
Chrysoteuchia culmella
Crambus pascuella
Scoparia ambigualis
Celypha lacunana
Tortrix viridana
Agapeta hamana
Aphomia sociella
Udea olivalis
Hofmannophila pseudospretella
Epiblema uddmanniana
Archips podana
Parapoynx stratiotata
Dipleurina lacustrata
Eucosma cana
Hedya pruniana
Chilo phragmitella
Nymphula stagnata
Eudonia pallida
Brachmia inornatella
Epiblema cynosbatella
Donacaula forficella
Calamotropha paludella
Teleiodes luculella
Schoenobius gigantella
Donacaula mucronellus
Psyche casta
Nematopogon metaxella

Monday, 22 June 2015

Moths are on the up

With Saturday night being around 14 degrees and cloudy all night I thought it would be rude not to put my two new home made MV traps out to see what moths I could catch and of course ensure the traps worked!
I woke up at around 4.30 and an almighty rainstorm had just moved through the broads, the roads were absolutely drenched and I feared for the MV bulbs (even with rainguards!). I was happy to see that both lights were still in good working order so I set up the table, made a coffee and went about the identification process.

The trap in the fen was bursting with life with around 58 species in it. a lot of routine expected moths for the time of the year, but there were a few highlights;
-A whopping 11 elephant hawkmoths in 1 trap
-Rosy footmn
-Silky wainscot
-Alder Kitten
-White pinion spotted
-puss moth
-2 figure of 80
-2 Alder moth
-Cream bordered green pea
-2 Flame wainscot
-Beautiful golden Y
-Reedbed pyralid trio- schoenobius gigantella, donacaulia murcronella and chilo fragmitella
-Phiaris micana (a scarce moth in Norfolk, 2 were seen at Claxton last week too) this is a new species for me.

The woodland trap, which I was expecting to be jam packed as it is often the case that the woodland far exceeds the fen trap, was very quiet for a change. There were many less moths and only around 30 species. Some of these were new for the day though, this trap did have slightly more micros in it, which are always more of an identification challenge for me.
The list got to 73 species by the end of the mornings micro identifications, which is not bad, given that it has been a slow year so far, but still down a bit on what I would be expecting for the time of year and the trap location, very nice to see a decent selection though.
This Saturday coming is the reserve moth morning so hopefully it will be a repeat performance or better. If the weather is mild on Friday night I may put a trap in the meadows to give a third habitat trap (book up at Strumpshaw office if you wish to attend the session 8am start on Saturday)