11th March 2015 ... Garden Moth trap latest

The first jumping spiders of the year appeared on my sunny garden wall today.
I like these little critters as they don't clutter the place up with webs .....

Salticus scenicus

On the moth trap front, a year first Early Grey was the 18th species for the year although given the conditions, the overall catch was a little disappointing.
2 x Agonopterix heracliana
7 x Emmelina monodactyla
5 x Common Quaker
1 x Early Grey
2 x Dark Chestnut

2243, Early Grey, Xylocampa aereola

5.4 deg C minimum
Overcast, calm.

15th April 2014 ... Garden Traps Latest ... Agonopterix purpurea ??

Min. overnight temperature - 1.6deg C.
Much happier with my new Oregon weather-station, the one it replaced read 4.5 deg minimum which was far too high.
Calm and clear, full moon
An Agonopterix sp was netted in the late afternoon and given its tiny size it is a strong candidate for Agonopterix purpurea.
This moth was last recorded in Bedfordshire on the 1904 Victoria County records.
It has been retained for gen det.
A worn individual, remnants of the markings can just about be seen in this "shot in a pot" pic.

691 ... Agonopterix purpurea ?

Despite the full moon and cold conditions, a small variety of moths found their way in and around the traps.
3 x Angle Shade's had pupated and hatched in the garden shed and were drawn to the window by the trap lights outside, as were 3 x Mompha subbistrigella and a White-shouldered House-moth.
Highlight of the Night
KNOT GRASS ... which may equal the earliest VC30 record
The Catch:-
0648 ... Endrosis sarcitrella, x 1
0691 ... Agonopterix purpurea, x 1 .... To be confirmed (garden first, if confirmed and first VC30 record for 110 years)
0892 ... Mompha subbistrigella, x 3
1781 ... Small Waved Umber, x 1

Small Waved Umber

1862 ... Double-striped Pug, x 1
1927 ... Brindled Beauty, x 1

Brindled Beauty

2092 ... Shuttle-shaped Dart, x 1
2182 ... Small Quaker, x 1
2243 ... Early Grey, x 3

Early Grey

2289 ... Knot Grass, x 1 ... year first

Knot Grass

2306 ... Angle Shades, x 3
2389 ... Pale Mottled Willow, x 1

20th April 2013 ... Garden Traps report

No new moths to add from the garden traps, zero degrees for Friday and last night didn't help but the daytime sunshine has been quite warm and lots of activity was noted.
Yesterday and this morning saw 4 species of butterfly, Brimstone, Small Tortoiseshell, Small White and Peacock.
Lots of large and small Bumblebees and a healthy population of Bee Flies.
Only one moth to add to the year list which was nowhere near the traps, instead it was buzzing around my guests in the lounge room and narrowly avoiding attempts to swat it ... Tinea pellionella, Case-bearing Clothes Moth.

No flowers yet on the Hebe for this large Bumble Bee (above) which I think is Bombus lapidarius.

Last nights trapping included this Early Thorn, my second this year .......

Moths :-
Last nght.
0240 ...  Tinea pellionella ... Case-bearing Clothes Moth ... 1
1917 ... Early Thorn ... Selenia dentaria ... 1
2187 ... Common Quaker ... Orthosia cerasi ... 1
2188 ... Clouded Drab ... Orthosia incerta ... 1
2190 ... Hebrew Character ... Orthosia gothica ... 2
2243 ... Early Grey ... Xylocampa areola ... 4
19th April ....
2190 ... Hebrew Character ... Orthosia gothica ... 3
2243 ... Early Grey ... Xylocampa areola ... 4

6th & 7th April ... Garden Trap

6 deg C at dusk last night so I fired up the trap/shed lights. I gave the traps a short 2 hour run on Saturday as it was 4 deg at early dusk and bagged a Common Quaker and Agonopterix heracliana before the temperature plummeted to minus 3.
Last night was a little better with two additions to the garden year list ...

7th April
1 Clouded Drab YF
1 Hebrew Character YF
3 Early Grey

Hebrew Character

Clouded Drab

Early Grey

Latest from The Dells trap

It's been a little warmer of late so I fired up the trap (4 x 11w PL actinic).
Nothing new but nice to catch a few moths.
The highlight of the week wasn't a moth but a much bigger flyer. A Peregrine gliding over the garden at about  60 ft.
I was attracted to it by the crows, who were noisily mobbiing it, and the clucking of the local Jackdaws.
It soon got fed up with it's tormentors and sped off to the north west.

Moths:-
17th Feb.
1 ... 2243 ... Early Grey

16th Feb
1 ... 0688 ... Agonopterix heracliana

15th Feb
1 ... 0688 ... Agonopterix heracliana
1 ... 2243 ... Early Grey
3 ... 2259 ... Dark Chestnut

14th Feb ... 0688 ... Agonopterix heracliana

Early Grey,  Xylocampa aereola

5th Jan 2013 ... Earliest Early

Early Grey was the earliest record for the garden, found on the wall by the trap.
Yet another Dark Chestnut, which is the 5th this year and much commoner in The Dells garden than Chestnut.
Other interesting creatures were the variety of flies around the trap and a Rosemary Beetle, Chrysolina americana.
An unidentified larva was seen munching away at my Senicio cineraria (Silver Ragwort) which also suffers occasional attacks from Cinnabar larva as it is closely related to Common Ragwort.

Early Grey

Rosemary Beetle

Unidentified larva  25mm max.

6th April 2011... Garden Traps

Overnight min. temp. 7.1 deg C ... Light rain most of the evening.
Much warmer last night so I gave the traps a run for the first time since last Monday night.
There are still Redwings passing over the garden at night, sounding like they need oiling, and the bat numbers have increased from 2 to 4.

Traps :- ... 19 moths of 9 species
0695 Agonopterix alstromeriana 1
1524 Emmelina monodactyla 1
1862 Double-striped Pug Gymnoscelis rufifasciata 2
1917 Early Thorn Selenia dentaria 1
2182 Small Quaker Orthosia cruda 1
2188 Clouded Drab Orthosia incerta 5
2190 Hebrew Character Orthosia gothica 3
2243 Early Grey Xylocampa areola 3
2306 Angle Shades Phlogophora meticulosa 2



Early Thorn, Selenia dentaria




Angle Shades, Phlogophora meticulosa ...Early Grey, Xylocampa areola



27th Feb 2012 ... Early Grey

Overnight min. temp. 9deg, light rain,
The "peak" period was stymied by the rain and the trap covers remained on until 11pm when I returned from the cinema.
The film, by the way, was "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", quite good.
Not a lot in the traps this morning but I managed to add an Early Grey to the 2012 garden year list.

1025 Tortricodes alternella x 2
1524 Emmelina monodactyla x 2
2243 Early Grey ... Xylocampa aereola ... year first
2256 Satellite ... Eupsilia transversa

EARLY GREY ... Xylocampa aereola

20th March 2011....Spring equinox at last

The Spring equinox is here and the daytime is now longer than the night.

Conditions were very good for the time of year and the traps were busier than usual with 38 moths recorded of 8 species.

Mostly the same old, but an Early Thorn turned up to brighten up the evenings mothing.

Tonight Matt Ratface Trappings and myself will be at Holme Wood for our second outing there. The first occasion was quite a success considering we only used a battery operated, low wattage trap, but tonight we are taking the jenny and a couple of traps, a 100 watt FUL and an 80watt MV.

Looking forward to that as the weather forecast looks very favourable.
The full report will appear on Matts blog, http://thetrappingsofsuccess.blogspot.com

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EARLY THORN 1917

EARLY GREY 2243

COMMON QUAKER 2187 ........my most numerous moth to date. The Catch :-

13 x Common Quaker

5 x Agonopterix heracliana

5 x Double-striped Pug

6 x Clouded Drab

3 x Hebrew Character

2 x Early Grey

3 x Emmelina monodactyla

1 x Early Thorn *FFY

Totals :-

238 moths (163 macro, 75 micro) of 25 species (17 macro, 8 micro)

11th March 2011 ...A beautiful pair

The garden was affected by last nights early evening stiff breeze which calmed down at about 21.00 hrs. Most of my garden moths are trapped in the first hour or so after dusk so the early evening produced very little.
A solitary A. heracliana braved the wind at around 18.45 with two Common Quakers clinging on to the walls near the lights.
As soon as the wind dropped, at around 9pm , the situation improved when a March Moth put in an appearance followed by an Oak Beauty.
The trap turned up another Oak Beauty this morning which makes 7 for the year to date.
Oak Beauty is a garden "first" this year so to have 7 of them turn up has pleasantly surprised me.
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A brace of...OAK BEAUTY 1930

MARCH MOTH 1663

EARLY GREY 22436 x Common Quaker

2 x Oak Beauty

1 x March Moth

1 x Early Grey

1 x Hebrew Character

1 x Agonopterix heracliana

This years garden total:-

107 moths of 20 species (14 macro, 6 micro )

After a recount ! 62 macro and 45 micro....

Of the 45 micros, A. heracliana accounted for 30, Tortricodes alternella weighed in with 9. Also Ypsolopha ustella x 2, Emmelina monodactyla x 2, with one each of Amblyptilia acanthadactyla and Epiphyas postvittana.

Of the 62 macros to date, half of them have been Common Quaker, with surprisingly, 7 x Oak Beauty and only 4 x Hebrew Character. The rest is made up of 3's, 2's and 1's of various species.

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For anyone following the little side bet between myself and Matt (http://thetrappingsofsuccess blog) for the most species caught in one year....

As far as I know, Matt bagged a Red Chestnut last night, which on my reckoning, makes the score 22 t0 20, putting me two behind.

Embarrassingly, I still haven't paid for last years defeat, the bet being an "excellent" bottle of red.

The local wine shop in Biggleswade closed down and the supermarkets around here only stock "good" wine scaling down to "barely drinkable".

A foray further afield or an email to Mr Laithwaite is required, but if I wait long enough, we might be quits !

23rd Feb... Surprisingly early

What a difference a few degrees make !
Temperature stayed around 9 deg C until after midnight before dipping to 6 deg.
An Early Grey was a month earlier than last year (25th March) and a Dark Chestnut was on the shed near the blacklights. My second March Moth joined my third Oak Beauty after 3 Tortricodes alternella and an Agonopterix heracliana had been listed.
Best night of the year so far and tonight (24th) looks to be promising.
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EARLY GREY 2243

DARK CHESTNUT 2259 Evenings tally :-

3 x Tortricodes alternella 1025

Agonopterix heracliana 688

Dark Chestnut 2259

Oak Beauty 1930

March Moth 1663

Early Grey *FFY 2243

Garden Tally :-

35 moths of 15 species ( 10 macro, 5 micro )

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New Site now being monitored. HOLME WOOD, Northill, Bedfordshire.

Son and Dad have joined forces to monitor this site on a "once a month" basis.

Matt "Ratface" Burgess has designed a foldaway portable trap with seperate clip-on twin 15 watt tubes and yours truly has wired the inverters and lampholders to a weatherproof box. ( After first crossing over the lampholders and burning out a tenners worth of tubes during testing !)

We set it up at Holme Wood for its first outing last night and I went there at "sparrow fart" this morning to check the contents .

Full report will appear on Matts blog in the near future along with some pics of the moths , trap and site.

Not a bad first outing. Obviously all year firsts :-

7 x Small Brindled Beauty

5 x Dotted Border

5 x March Moth

2 x Tortricodes alternella

1 x Pale Brindled Beauty

1 x Hebrew Character

1 x Engrailed spp.

1 x Spring Usher

1 x Clouded Drab

24 Moths for 9 species.

Next outing will be sometime in March

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A worker bee was seen for the first time this year in Matts garden this morning.......................

........................and it was nice to see the first Primrose in flower in Holme Wood.

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How many times have you seen one of these on the wall at night and thought it was a moth ?

Yeah, me too !

A Marbled Beauty "catty" munching on the lichen on my wall last night

Plenty of Seven-spot ladybirds about.

" There's a killer on the road"......Lyrics from a famous song by The Doors....this particular killer was on the wall above the doors

Who saw the film "The Fly" ?

This one looks like Brundle

23rd May....The future is Orange

Had a field night in the garden last night with a few garden firsts. A large array of the usual visitors and a couple waiting for confirmation I.D.
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ORANGE FOOTMAN photos sent to Andy on this one

SCALLOPED HAZEL

my fourth LIME HAWKMOTH

PEBBLE HOOK-TIP 2nd record

Awaiting I.D. on this one

It turns out that this is a rather small and late flying Early Grey


Awaiting I.D. but this one and the previous will be garden firsts I think

Marbled Minor agg.

SALLOW KITTEN garden first

BUFF-TIP garden first

TAWNY-BARRED ANGLE garden first

CLOUDED SILVER garden first All in all a great night for The Dells

Thanks for the comments Ben and welcome aboard Maurice, glad you like the pics. I have had it confirmed by the county recorder that we have an Early Grey and a Marbled Minor agg. Thanks Melissa.