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

Signs of Spring and another Oak Beauty

I love to see the Dog Violets come into flower around the garden, it means Spring is just around the corner.
They are very invasive and spread like wildfire so have to be "culled" every year or so, and when the flowers have finished the leaves grow into large clumps.
The smaller Sweet Violet will soon follow and Spring will be upon us at last.
It's been a long Winter.

Despite last nights rain and constant drizzle an OAK BEAUTY was found on the illuminated shed wall.

Garden tally 2011: 26 moths of 14 species

Common moth is new tick

This Pale Brindled Beauty has been on my target list for some time.
Last year I struggled to find any winter months moths but since installing a 15watt flourescent fitting under the eaves of my shed, and using a 15w 350BL tube to bathe the shed wall in light, I have added 4 new species to my garden list.
To illustrate this further, at this time last year I recorded just 3 species....Winter Moth, Dark Chestnut and Satellite, all caught in the skinner trap.
So far this year the total is 14 species, with only Common Quaker and Chestnut being found in the traps. The traps will come into their own very soon but the cold weather moths seem to prefer the illuminated walls.
The other advantage is I can put on the wall lights during rainy weather and not have to worry about soaked traps as I have no effective rain guards fitted.

Spring Usher is still on my target list and a Dotted Border would be a welcome addition......seek and ye shall find !
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PALE BRINDLED BEAUTY 1926 Year total to date:-
25 moths of 14 species ( 9 macro, 5 micro )

Garden produce

I put on two Skinner traps last night and my optimism paid off. This Chestnut was in the 100 watt FUL and an Early Moth, first one ever recorded in my garden, was on the shed wall above the 22w/20w Actinic/Blacklight trap. Temperatures stayed just above 4degC after a brief dip. Where have the micros gone ???
FFY = First for year in garden
GF = Garden first
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CHESTNUT 2258 .......FFY

EARLY MOTH 1960....GF Year tally:-

24 moths of 13 species (5 micro and 8 macro)

Strike one for the new trap

My new toy was showing 1.7 deg C at 0200am last night/this morning and I had already checked trap at 0130 with no results.
I had figured that this was too cold and decided to turn off the lights, but to my surprise there was a Common Quaker shivering in the egg boxes.
This was the first moth found IN the traps this year, the rest were all found on the illuminated walls. Strike one for the upgraded Skinner !
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The new toy, which I find useful at this time of year as the local weather forecast
is often quite a few degrees out on local temperature predictions.
As can be seen, yesterdays maximum was 7.2 and last nights min was 1.7....the current temp is 7.1
This is a quality version, made in Germany, and automatically resets daily.
Vorsprung durch technik !

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COMMON QUAKER 2187 Year tally:-

22 moths of 11 species (6 macro, 5 micro)