Chippenham Fen - 14/06/19

I got a very kind invite to Chippenham Fen on Friday night from James-Harding Morris.

Having had a little experience with Reed-bed habitats before, namely Sawbridgeworth Marsh and Rye Meads, I had an inkling of what might grace the traps.

Also two target species for the year at the site were hopefully going to show up, both would be new species for me.

We amassed 10 traps between 5 of us, also being accompanied by three of the workers. 

Despite the deluge of rain for most of the week, the site wasn't as boggy as I expected, meaning the levels must drain off fairly quickly over the peat and clay soil.

I set up 3 of my traps line astern along one of the tracks, and turned on the lights at around 9:30pm.
The sky was fairly light for even an hour later owing to the clear sky, but luckily the temperature did hold up fairly well despite the clear conditions.

Some really nice moths were observed at all of the lights. Silver Barred was literally the first moth in and one of two of the target species for the night, in fact it was my only example over my three lights.

Reed Leopard quickly followed, this appears to be common at this site as I counted over 20 individuals, a really unusual looking moth.

All in all, 7 species were new for me! Including Glyphipterix thrasonella, which is new for my UK records having previously seen them in France. 

I started packing up at 2am as tiredness was kicking in and I knew I had an impending hour drive home.

61 species was fairly repectable but numbers were a little low, of coirse none of this matters when the quality of species are present.

All in all a fantastic experience of a well managed habitat.

Here is the total list

Macro Moths : 35 species
Micro Moths : 26 species

Total : 61 species

Catch Report - 14/06/19 - Chippenham Fen - Cambridgeshire -1x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x twin 20w Wemite Actinic & 40w Actinic Trap & 1x 160w Mercury Blended Robinson Trap - 3 traps in total

Macro Moths

Brimstone Moth
Clouded Border
Clouded Brindle
Common Carpet
Common Swift
Common Wainscot
Common Wave
Common White Wave
Cream-bordered Green Pea
Dark Arches
Four-dotted Footman
Ghost Moth
Green Carpet
Grey Pine Carpet
Heart & Dart
Large Nutmeg
Large Yellow Underwing
Light Arches
Lime Speck Pug
Maiden's Blush
Marbled Minor
Marbled White spot
May Highflyer
Orange Footman
Pale Prominent
Reed Leopard
Setaceous Hebrew Character
Shaded Pug
Silver Barred
Small Clouded Brindle
Smoky Wainscot
Striped Wainscot
Treble Lines
Turnip Moth
White Point
Willow Beauty

Micro Moths

Aethes rubigana
Anania perlucidalis
Apotomis turbidana
Bactra sp
Brachmia inornatella
Cataclysta lemnata
Chilo phragmitella
Crambus lathoniellus
Crambus pascuella
Elachista albidella
Elophila nymphaeata
Emmelina sp prob monodactyla
Ephestia sp
Epinotia bilunana
Epinotia demarniana
Ethmia dodecea
Glyphipterix thrasonella
Mompha terminella
Nematopogon metaxella
Notocelia trimaculana
Plutella xylostella
Pseudargyrotoza conwagana
Pterophorus pentadactyla
Scoparia ambigualis
Scoparia pyralella
Tortrix viridana

Chilo phragmitella

Trap Positions

Chippenham Fen

160w MBT Trap

Mompha terminella

Reed Leopard

Silver Barred

Striped Wainscot

Striped Wainscot

Four-dotted Footman

Elachista albidella

Cream-bordered Green Pea

Chilo phragmitella

Brachmia inornatella

Tieing up odds and ends whilst we endure the worst start to Summer.

Very little to report my end.
The last few trap outings have been soggy and messy with just a couple of moths added to the year list.
In fact, i've hardly run my trap since last week it really hasn't been worth it when I have!

A hint of migration last night with 3x Plutella xylostella.

Other than that, it's been really dross and i'm hoping next week after copious amounts of wind and rain, that we will see some lovely fresh emergences.

Below are recent bits and bobs.

Bordered White picture (Missed from the mega Bramfield Woods night on the 1st of June).

The less common form (for me) of the Common Marbled Carpet.

Eudonia pallida found whilst walking through local grassland.

10/06/19 - Scoparia ambigualis 1 [NFY]

10/06/19 - Grey Dagger 1 [NFY] 

Garden species count for 2019 now upto 165.

Common Marbled Carpet

Bordered White

Grey Dagger

Eudonia pallida

Scoparia ambigualis

7 at 7, A windy but productive night

Extremely windy and a bit soggy as well and not particularly warm, with a minimum of 10c it felt a little cool in that wind this morning.
I also got up rather late at 7am and didn't expect to tick off 7 new for years! 
A nice variety as well, and all common moths.


In the evening whilst drying out the trap from the heavy downpours we had today, I decided to do my daily tapping of the bushes in my garden.
It was well worth it, with two more year listers added, Treble Brown Spot and Udea olivalis.


Photos were extremely tricky to take, with the poor light and the on and off blustery showers.
Garden species count for 2019 now upto 163.

Catch Report - Back Garden - Stevenage - 125w MV Robinson Trap

07/06/19

Macro Moths

Buff Ermine 1 [NFY]
Freyer's Pug 1 [NFY]
Green Pug 1 [NFY]
Grey Pug 2 [NFY]
Scorched Wing 1 [NFY]
Tawny Marbled Minor 1 [NFY]
Treble Brown Spot 1 [NFY]

Micro Moths

Hedya pruniana 1 [NFY]
Udea olivalis 1 [NFY]

Buff Ermine

Freyer's Pug

Green Pug

Grey Pug

Scorched Wing

Tawny Marbled Brown

Treble Brown Spot

Udea olivalis

Bramfield Woods - 04/06/19

We did another trip to Bramfield Woods on Tuesday night (4th of June).

In short, and after a wet and cool day with max temperatures of just 15 degrees, we struggled! 
Clear skies were a feature as we were setting up, and before it even got remotely dark we could see our breath, never a good sign for the night ahead!
But we soldiered on and we did get some cloud cver roll in from the South, but it was just too cold and misty and we ended up packing away by midnight.

There were a few standout species amongst a modest cast of moths, of note were 2 Pine Carpets to the bright 250w clear bulb on the usual cross-roads spot, and 3 Map-winged Swifts, also to the 2 traps in the far East.
Aethes beatricella was the best Micro-moth, captured by Trevor.

All 3 species were new for the site, and none are common in the County.

Overall, 50 species was a bit of a come-down from 3 night's previous 200+
It just goes to show how weather dependant mothing really is!

Here is the total list

Macro Moths : 33 species
Micro Moths : 17 species

Total : 50 species

Catch Report - 04/06/19 - Bramfield Woods - Hertfordshire - 1x 250w Clear MV Robinson Trap, 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x twin 20w Wemite Actinic & 40w Actinic Trap & 1x 160w Mercury Blended Robinson Trap - 5 traps in total + 3 extra traps provided by Trevor
Macro Moths

Angle Shades
Brindled White-spot
Brown Silver-lines
Cinnabar
Clouded-bordered Brindle
Common Swift
Coxcomb Prominent
Cream Wave
Flame Shoulder
Green Carpet
Grey Arches
Grey-pine Carpet
Ingrailed Clay
Iron Prominent
Larch Pug
Large Yellow Underwing
Light Emerald
Maiden's Blush
Map-winged Swift
Marbled Brown
Orange Footman
Pale Prominent
Pale Tussock
Pine Carpet
Purple Bar
Rustic Shoulder knot
Scorched Wing
Setaceous Hebrew Character
Silver-ground Carpet
Small White Wave
Straw Dot
Tawny-barred Angle
Vine's Rustic

Micro Moths

Aethes beatricella
Ancylis mitterbacheriana
Argyresthia brockeella
Blastobasis lacticolella
Bucculatrix ulmella
Celypha lacunana
Ditula angustiorana
Ectoedemia heringella
Glyphipterix forsterella
Hedya pruniana
Lathronympha strigana
Lobesia reliquana
Notocelia cynosbatella
Scoparia ambigualis
Scoparia pyralella
Syndemis musculana
Tortrix viridana

Argyresthia brockeella

Ingrailed Clay

Map-winged Swift

Marbled Brown

Pine Carpet

Scoparia ambigualis

Double garden post 02/06/19 & 03/06/19

Catching up, after the mammoth field trip from Saturday night. 
Here is Sunday and Monday nights catches from the garden trap. 
Another good selection of new for year species featured over both back-to-back nights.


Temperatures did struggle a bit after dark, one night was clear and the other overcast and windy with minimums of 12c, not quite the 16c we had on Saturday...but it was good enough.


Shark was the best record, only the third garden record and what a beauty.
Garden species count for 2019 now upto 154.

Catch Report - Back Garden - Stevenage - 125w MV Robinson Trap

02/06/19

Macro Moths

Ingrailed Clay 2 [NFY]
Silver-ground Carpet 1 [NFY]
Small Square-spot 1 [NFY]

Micro Moths

Lyonetis clerkella 1 [NFY]
Nemophora degeerella 1 [NFY]

03/06/19

Macro Moths

Burnished Brass 1 [NFY]
Heart & Club 1 [NFY]
Mottled Rustic 1 [NFY]
Shark 1 [NFY]
White Ermine 1 [NFY]

Micro Moths

Pammene regiana 1 [NFY]
Tortrix viridana 1 [NFY]

Burnished Brass

Heart & Club

Mottled Rustic

Nemophora deegerella

Pammene regiana

Shark

Small Square-spot

Bramfield Woods - 01/06/19

On Saturday night, and after cancelling the previous Thursday’s trip out due to ill health, I was ready to go again with a few better nights sleep under my belt.
Saturday during the day had been a right ole’ scorcher, with highs of 28 degrees and plenty of warm sunshine. We also had quite a bit of cloud bubble up an hour into the session, and the relative humidity was extremely high.
Thus, the moths responded very well to all manner of spectrums of UV, we ran 10 lights in total across the central and Eastern areas of Bramfield Woods, positioning nearly all of the lights out of site of one another.

An hour in and with that increasing cloud cover, the traps were going bonkers at just before 11pm, so much so, that it was hard to keep up with what had just came in and then noting new arrivals as quickly as I could type up my list.

Trevor’s Traps in the far East did very well for micros, and so did a few of mine in the central/eastern section.
Towards the West more, Colin’s two MV’s rustled up lots of new for site Macro Moths and although originally thinking there weren’t many of the smaller moths present, upon inspection he was pleasantly surprised.

Stand-out Macro Moth species for me were Larch Pug (Seen only once in Essex previously in 2009), Grey Arches (Again just one record from Hexton Chalk Pit in 2014) and Two Great Oak Beauties, which seem to be getting earlier and earlier each year.

Micro Moths was where the night was really, with the warm conditions lasting all night, the sky and egg trays were full of them! So much so that it was quite tricky wading through hundreds of Coleophora and Stigmella’s to find the interesting stuff… o gawd we must have missed heaps I reckon, as we still continued to pack up gone 3am!
A worn Pug that Colin took home with him, after dissection turned out to be the very rare Campanula Pug!

Best moth of the night went to the scarce Pyralid adventive species, Agrota nemoralis.. a new addition to the Herts list and one I had only seen previously in France before, what a stunning looking moth it was.
This was backed up by scarce Pine moths such as Cedestis subfasciella, Cydia conicolana, Elegia similella and Pammene ochsenheimeriana.

Also three specimens of the scarce Tortrix Ancylis diminutana were noteworthy, a species I added to the Bedfordshire list only last year.

Here is the total list so far

Macro Moths : 89 species
Micro Moths : 112 species

Total : 201 species!

Catch Report - 01/06/19 - Bramfield Woods - Hertfordshire - 1x 250w Clear MV Robinson Trap, 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x twin 20w Wemite Actinic & 40w Actinic Trap & 1x 160w Mercury Blended Robinson Trap - 5 traps in total + 3 extra traps provided by Trevor and 2 extra traps provided by Colin (10 in total).

Macro Moths

Alder Moth
Angle Shades
Blood-vein
Bordered White
Brimstone
Brindled White-spot
Broken-barred Carpet
Brown Rustic
Brown Silver-lines
Buff Ermine
Buff tip
Campanula Pug - GEN DET CWP
Clay Triple-lines
Clouded Border
Clouded Silver
Common Carpet
Common Marbled Carpet
Common Pug
Common Swift
Common Wainscot
Coxcomb Prominent
Cream Wave
Dark Arches
Dwarf Pug
Figure of Eighty
Flame Shoulder
Foxglove Pug
Green Carpet
Grey Arches
Grey-pine Carpet
Grey Pug
Green Pug
Green Silver-lines
Heart & Dart
Large Nutmeg
Large Yellow Underwing
Oak Nycteoline
Light Brocade
Cinnabar
Larch Pug
Least Black Arches
Light Emerald
Lime Hawk-moth
Lime-speck Pug
Maiden's Blush
Marbled Brown
Marbled Minor
Marbled White-spot
Middle barred Minor
Mottled Pug
Nut-tree Tussock
Oak Hook tip
Ochreous Pug
Orange Footman
Pale Oak Beauty
Pale Prominent
Pale Tussock
Peacock Moth
Pebble Hook-tip
Pebble Prominent
Peppered Moth
Poplar Grey 
Poplar Lutestring
Puss Moth
Red necked Footman
Riband Wave
Rustic Shoulder knot
Sandy Carpet
Scalloped Hazel
Scalloped Hook tip
Scorched Carpet
Scorched Wing
Seraphim
Setaceous Hebrew Character
Silver-ground Carpet
Single-dotted Wave
Small Fan-foot
Small Phoenix
Small White Wave
Snout
Spruce Carpet
Straw Dot
Tawny-barred Angle
Treble Brown Spot
Treble Lines
Turnip Moth
White Ermine
White Point
Yellow-barred Brindle


Micro Moths

Acrobasis advenella
Adela reamurella
Agapeta hamana
Agrotera nemoralis
Alabonia geoferella
Ancylis diminutana
Ancylis mitterbacheriana
Aphomia sociella
Apotomis turbidana
Aphomia sociella
Agonopterix arenella
Argyresthia brockeella
Argyresthia conjugella
Argyresthia spinosella
Argyresthia trifasciata
Assara terrebrella
Bactra sp
Blastobasis lacticolella
Bucculatrix ulmella
Caloptilia alchimiella - GEN DET CWP
Caloptilia robustella - GEN DET CWP
Caloptilia syringella
Cameraria ohridella
Capua vulgana
Carpatolechia proximella
Cedestis subfasciella
Celypha lacunana
Cnephasia
Cochylimorpha straminea
Cochylis atricapitana
Cochylis nana
Cochylis molliculana
Coleophora sp
Coleophora frischella/alcyonipennella
Coptoptriche marginea
Crambus lathoniellus
Cryptoblabes bistriga
Cydia conicolana
Cydia fagiglandana
Cydia nigricana
Cydia pomonella
Dioryctria schuetzeella
Dioryctria simplicella
Ectoedemia decentella
Elachista albifrontella
Elachista argentella
Elachista cannapenella
Elegia similella
Endrosis sarcitrella
Ephestia sp
Epinotia bilunana
Epinotia demarniana
Epinotia tetraquetrana
Epinotia rubiginosana
Epinotia subocellana
Epiphyas postvittana
Esperia sulphurella
Eulia ministrana
Evergestis forficalis
Glyphipterix forsterella
Grapholita compositella
Gypsonoma dealbana
Hedya nubiferana
Hedya pruniana
Hofmannophila pseudospretella
Incurvaria oehmanniella
Lobesia reliquana
Micropterix aureatella
Monopis laevigella
Monopis weaverella
Nemapogon cloacella
Nemapogon koenigi
Nemophora deegerella
Nematopogon schwarziellus
Nematopogon swammerdamella
Notocelia cynosbatella
Notocelia trimaculana
Notocelia uddmanniana
Orthotaenia undulana
Pammene argyrana
Pandemis cerasana
Pammene ochsenheimeriana
Paraswammerdamia albicapitella
Parornix betulae - GEN DET CWP
Parornix devoniella - GEN DET CWP
Phyllonorycter harisella
Phyllonorycter heegeriella
Phyllonorycter hilarella
Phyllonorycter lautella
Phyllonorycter nicellii - GEN DET CWP
Phyllonorycter oxyacanthae - GEN DET CWP
Plutella xylostella
Pseudargyrotoza conwagana
Phtheochroa rugosana
Ptycholoma lecheana
Roeslerstammia erxlebella
Rhyacionia pinivorana
Rhodophaea formosa
Scoparia ambigualis
Scoparia pyralella
Scrobipalpa costella
Spilonota ocellana
Stigmella atricapitella - GEN DET CWP
Strophedra nitidana
Strophedra weirana
Swammerdamia caesiella - GEN DET CWP
Syndemis musculana
Teleoides luculella
Teleiopsis diffinis
Tinea trinotella
Tinea semifulvella
Tischeria ekebladella

The main trap on the crossroads, all 250w of it

Agrota nemoralis

Ancylis diminutana

Apotomis turbidana

Cedestis subfaciella

Cydia conicolana

Dioryctria simplicella

Strophedra nitida & weirana

Elegia similella

Epinotia demarniana

Grey Arches

Larch Pug

Pammene ochsenheimeriana

Poplar Hawk-moth

Teleiopsis diffinis