Monday 26 January 2015

Mild night but few moths

The long run of frosty nights locally probably put paid to getting much from last night's brief mild interlude.  I ran a single MV light in Bernwood Forest, Bucks for a few hours from dusk and got just 14 moths of six species, rather fewer than I'd anticipated:  Winter Moth (1), Pale Brindled Beauty (1), Spring Usher (2), Mottled Umber (4), Satellite (1) & Chestnut (5).  Meanwhile, back home at Westcott, Bucks the garden actinic managed only Chestnut (1) & Dark Chestnut (2).  Still, at least something turned up to break the monotony!  Dave Wilton

Spring Usher, Bernwood Forest 25th January

2 comments:

  1. Similar results for me Dave, so reassuring in a way. I put 2 MV traps and an Actinic out overnight at Harcourt arboretum last night having seen the forecast and needing to complete Jan survey. I also spent an hour after dark searching tree trunks for female moths. In that hour I managed to see just 3 moths of any description: 1 x male Winter Moth, 1 x Ypsolopha ustella and 1 x Agonopterix heracliana agg. The traps were extremely poor. 1 MV had a single Chestnut underneath it, the second had a single Chestnut in it with a Spring Usher and a Pale Brindled Beauty both outside. The actinic trap however did a little better with 15 Chestnut, 4 Mottled Umber, 1 Winter Moth, and 1 Pale Brindled Beauty. I really was expecting it to be considerably better, and certainly had hoped for Early Moth. Odd. Winter has been pretty poor in my experience.

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  2. 1 Fly and 2 Gnats were my garden results - still only seen four moths this year.

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