Hemel Hempstead Field Trip - 07/05/13

On the night of the 7th Roger, David and myself ran 1 trap near Hay Wood, 2 traps next to Green Croft and left 2 running at Gadesprings, hoping to cover as much of the Boxmoor's Trust land as we could on one night without doing ourselves an injury!
Their was a minor hiccup at about 9pm when I realised that I had not turned the lights on at Gadesprings (as we left before dark at 8.30pm), so a quick race down to flick the switch and it was back upto Green Croft to resume business.
The weather was pretty much perfect with a steady temperature of 16c as the light faded, unfortunately the cloud did not materialise and a breeze picked up which didn't help things.
The moths were quite few and far between especially for this time of year, although most expected species turned up (minus Water Carpet and Powdered Quaker, both of which we trapped on the 24th of April)
Lunar Marbled Brown and Common Quaker were by far the commonest with 12 and 15 of each respectively.
Highlight for myself was a melanic Nut-tree Tussock, I have never seen such a dark example and was reminiscent of the Tawny Marbled Minor's you get mid-summer, both Roger and David said that they get a fair few like this, but this being my first out of countless Nut-tree Tussocks over the years.
The most interesting micro was a single example of Cochylis atricapitana, initially I thought it was hybridella but I must have had a brain-lacking moment as this moth isn't on the wing until July (typically).

On the beetle front the Carabid Agonum dorsale was new for me and a Weevil that is yet to be identified was found walking around one of the traps.

Out of all the traps, the 125w MV Robinson at Green Croft did the best.

The full list is below, it is interesting to note that each location had some different species.


Green Croft - Hemel Hempstead - 9pm til 12pm

Macro moths

1x Chestnut
1x Waved Umber
1x Shuttle-shaped Dart
5x Nut-tree Tussock
3x Red-green Carpet
1x Yellow-barred Brindle
1x Small Quaker
12x Lunar Marbled Brown
15x Common Quaker
4x Early Thorn
2x Clouded Drab
1x Satellite
4x Hebrew Character
8x Brindled Pug

Micro moths

2x Eriocrania subpurpurella
1x Agonopterix arenella



Hay Wood - Hemel Hempstead - 9pm til 12pm

Macro Moths 

1x Pebble Prominent
1x Common Quaker

Micro Moths

2x Agonopterix arenella



Gadesprings - Hemel Hempstead - 9pm til 12.30pm

Macro Moths

1x Clouded Drab
1x Red Twin-spot Carpet
1x Hebrew Character
1x Early Thorn
2x Early Grey
1x Pale Prominent
4x Common Quaker
1x Chestnut

Micro moths

1x Eriocrania subpurpurella
1x Cochylis atricapitana

Nut-tree Tussock - melanic

Agonum dorsale

Cochylis atricapitana

Dorytomus sp. pos taeniatus