Thursday, 22 April 2021
Moths at work - 19/04/21
The onslaught is only just beginning...
Wednesday, 21 April 2021
Bramfield Woods - Field Trip - 20/04/21
Highlights included a some really fresh moths, Powdered Quaker, and a Brown Silver-line that almost looked like it was fresh out of the mold, the foodplant Bracken is abundant here.
It was also great to see a dark form of the Least Black Arches, not a common moth for me.
On the micro front, a Eriocrania species will need to be dissected (probably sangii) and one of my faves, just for it's mouthful of a name, Semioscopsis steinkelleriana.
The weather this Spring really has been against us here in the East, it hasn't ever felt like it's got going yet.
There were no generator woes this time thankfully!
Below is the list.
Catch
Report - Bramfield Woods - Central Herts - 20/04/21 - 4 traps - 1x 250w Clear Tubular MV Robinson Trap, 1x 125w
Clear MV Trap,1x 160w MBT Trap, 1x Twin 15w Actinic/Synergetic tube Trap
Macro Moths
Brindled Pug 12
Brown Silver Line 1
Chestnut 1
Clouded Drab 2
Common Quaker 5
Early Grey 2
Engrailed 1
Frosted Green 14
Hebrew Character 3
Least Black Arches 2
Lunar Marbled Brown 8
Nut-tree Tussock 1
Pine Beauty 1
Powdered Quaker 1
Purple Thorn 2
Red Chestnut 2
Small Quaker 4
Twin-spotted Quaker 2
Micro Moths
Acleris literana 1
Diurnea fagella 1
Dyseriocrania subpurpurella 11
Emmelima monodactyla 1
Eriocrania sangii sp 1
Phyllonorycter messaniella 2
Semioscopsis steinkelleriana 2

125w Clear MV Robinson Trap and the 160w MBT Trap in the background

Acleris literana

Actinic Trap

Brown Silver-line

Dyseriocrania subpurpurella f.fastuosella

Eriocrania pos sangii TBC

Least Black Arches

Powdered Quaker

Semioscopsis steinkelleriana
Monday, 19 April 2021
Moth species no.31 for the year (indoors)
Tuesday, 13 April 2021
Troublesome Twitchy Tinea's
It took me 4 times of the above method to get it to sit still for, I reckon 20 seconds at best, enough time to fire off a few shots.
To say i'm chuffed, would be an understatement.
This Tinea is quite uncommon nowadays despite it's vernacular name of 'Common Clothes Moth'.
Saturday, 10 April 2021
Coldest Spring for 20 years possible?
Gracillaria syringella |
Saturday, 3 April 2021
Latest from the garden trap
Moth species for 2021 in the garden now stands at 30.
Friday, 2 April 2021
Moths at work - 31/03/21
Acleris literana |
Acleris notana/ferrugana |
Alucita hexadactyla |
Early Grey |
Early Thorn |
Epiphyas postvittana |
Thursday, 1 April 2021
Caloptilia sp
Big excitement in (or should I say, bouncing about on the rain guard) last night to my garden trap, potentially my 2nd record of Caloptilia honoratella? Moth retained. The 5th UK record and my 1st for Herts was last year (21/05/20) Keep yours eyes peeled for this. Stevenage, North Herts.
Bramfield Woods - Field Trip - 30/03/21
We had our first session of the year at Bramfield Woods on Tuesday night.
The day had been mild at around 24 degrees, but with no cloud cover for the evening.
The temperature did remain fairly respectable even after a few hours of darkness. At around 11pm the big bright Moon started to rise and by midnight it felt a little cooler, 11 degrees when I headed home, but in my short 15 minute journey home it had dropped 3 degrees.
The session started catastrophically with one of the generators smoking plumes of white smoke, oil I suspect getting into the fuel.. I decided to turn that off after a few curse words.
I had already set up 3 traps a bit further round in the woodland, so I packed up the two traps that I couldn't run, and drove round to the other 3 lights... it was dark, 'What the hell' ran through my mind. upon inspection, the other generator has a fuel leak (Both of these problems did not show up after servicing them last month and leaving them running for an hour each, so frustrating).
I managed to limp the fuel leak generator on until midnight, by simply restarting it once it had cut out from fuel starvation, bearing in mind that this was happening every 10 minutes! I was exhausted to say the least!
The long and the short of it is that my father in law will take a look at both of them soon, and i've had to buy a brand new generator.
Moths... yes where were we, around 300 turned up to the 3 lights I ran, of 24 species from what I wrote down.
Best moths were a single Agonopterix ocellana (to Trevor's trap), lots of fresh Frosted Greens and a rather faded Dotted Chestnut.
After the stress and petrol fumes giving me a headache on the way home, it was well worth seeing some early season moths that I don't often see in my garden.
Below is the list that we managed on the trip.
Catch
Report - Bramfield Woods - Central Herts - 30/03/21 - 3 traps - 1x 125w Clear MV Trap,1x 160w MBT Trap, Quad 20w Wemlite + 15w Actinic tube Trap
Macro Moths
Brindled Pug 10
Chestnut 25
Clouded Drab 2
Common Quaker 100+
Dotted Chestnut 1
Engrailed 2
Frosted Green 10
Hebrew Character 5
Oak Beauty 3
Pine Beauty 4
Red-green Carpet 1
Satellite 6
Small Quaker 180+
Twin-spotted Quaker 5
Yellow Horned 6
Micro Moths
Acleris notana/ferrugana 4
Agonopterix ocellana 1
Alucita hexadactyla 1
Diurnea fagella 50+
Dyseriocrania subpurpurella 30+
Mompha jurassicella 1
Pammene giganteana 6
Phyllonorycter ulmifoliella 1
Tortricodes alternella 2
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125w MV Robinson Trap under flowering Sallow |
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160w MBT Trap |
Alucita hexadactyla |
Frosted Green |
Pammene giganteana |
Phyllonorycter ulmifoliella |
Pine Beauty |
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Quad 20w Wemlite Trap with 15w Actininc Tube |
Red Chestnut |
Yellow Horned |
Wednesday, 31 March 2021
Latest from the garden trap
3 year-listers on Monday night here in my garden in Stevenage, with two species of the common Spring Pugs and the every increasingly common Mompha jurassicella, which seems to have over-taken subbistrigella as the most prevelant Mompha in my garden.
The weather is warm during the day, but still cool at night with a low of 7c.
Moth species for 2021 in the garden now stands at 28.
29/03/21 - Back Garden - Stevenage - North Herts - 125w Clear MV Robinson Trap
Macro Moths
Sunday, 28 March 2021
Late moths and pale moths
I ran the trap again last night as it was predicted to be around 7 degrees, still a little on the cool side to get excited about, but worth a shot.
The wind was the problem, and that big bright orb in the sky, that was bright enough to pierce the high level cloud.
5 moths turned up, not great. But only my second Twin-spotted Quaker of the year, a really pale example, and 2 year first Diurnea fagella which are running two weeks behind compared to an average year here.
That's all folks! Tomorrow for a few days sees weather set to warm up, with temperatures in the low 20's possible, but still a little cool at night under clear skies.
Moth species for 2021 in the garden now stands at 25.
Diurnea fagella |
Hebrew Character |
Twin-spotted Quaker |
Thursday, 25 March 2021
Caloptilia elongella new for me
I ran the trap last night again at where I work, there were just 3 moths to be found in and around the trapping area, hardly ground-breaking for the end of March, a light frost, bright moon and just 1c was probably responsible for this.
But, one moth caught my eye as I packed away. A rufous-coloured Caloptilia that needed a second look.
I've recorded both betulicola and rufipennella in numbers over the years, but have never seen the Alder feeder, elongella. This is hardly surprising, as Alder isn't a very prolific species of tree in Herts. Alder is mostly found in the damper valleys and therefore wetland species tend to usually be confined to these areas (Although on warm muggy summer nights they have a tendency to disperse, for example Silky Wainscot and Bulrush Wainscot have been recorded in my garden before, which is nowhere near any suitable habitat).
Speaking with Graeme Smith, and a look at the differences between the three, the moth does indeed appear to be my first elongella.
rufipennella was instantly ruled about because of the legs. The next bit to look at is the triangular section underneath the legs called the 'trochanter' this is white or off-white in betulicola. In elongella it is the same colour as the ground colouration of the moth itself, mine is very much the latter.
The British Caloptilia genus currently stands at 13 species, with honoratella added to the British list in 2019. I was lucky enough to record this new to Hertfordshire last year.
I have therefore recorded 12 species of Caloptilia here now, the missing species is probably a common moth for some of you out there... azalleella! One day maybe..
Caloptilia elongella |
Caloptilia elongella |
Wednesday, 24 March 2021
More lure action at work this time
In the Cemetery where I work in Bishop's Stortford, and not far from my trapping area, we have two medium sized Oak trees which are in line of sight to where I park my car, the Pammene giganteana's caterpillars feed from the Oak tree, and I have a Grapholita molesta lure that seems to attract Pammene giganteana, you can see where i'm going here can't you...
So with the (MOL) lure deployed on my bonnet at 7:30am I would check it intermittently throughout the day.
At 9, I had a quick peek and was very surprised to see one sitting on top of the trap, not only for it's early flight time in the day, but also for the fact that the temperature was barely 7 degrees, cloudy and with a cool breeze making things feel much colder.
I checked again at lunchtime (1pm), and there were a further 4!
From 1pm until hometime at 3:30pm, there were no more.
Trapping at night has been quite poor the last few nights with hardly any variety and with only Small Quaker doing well.
A nice 'lead-coloured' Clouded Drab was the best of the bunch last night.
'Leady' Clouded Drab |
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4 of the 5 Pammene giganteana |
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The first one to arrive between 7:30am to 9:00am |
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Lure deployment area |
Pammene giganteana |