Welcome

Hello and welcome to my moth Blog. I now reside in a small village in East Cambridgeshire called Fordham. My Blog's aim is to promote and encourage others to participate in the wonderful hobby that is Moth-trapping.
Moth records are vital for building a picture of our ecosystem around us, as they really are the bottom of the food chain. They are an excellent early indicator of how healthy a habitat is. I openly encourage people to share their findings via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
So why do we do it? well for some people it is to get an insight into the world of Moths, for others it is to build a list of species much like 'Twitching' in the Bird world. The reason I do it....you just never know what you might find when you open up that trap! I hope to show what different species inhabit Cambridgeshire and neighbouring counties.
On this Blog you will find up-to-date records and pictures.
I run a trap regularly in my garden and also enjoy doing field trips to various localities over several different counties.
Please also check out the links in the sidebar to the right for other people's Blogs and informative Websites.
Thanks for looking and happy Mothing!

KEY

NFY = New Species For The Year
NFG = New Species For The Garden
NEW! = New Species For My Records

Any Species highlighted in RED signifies a totally new species for my records.

If you have any questions or enquiries then please feel free to email me
Contact Email : bensale@rocketmail.com

My Latest Notables and Rarities

Monday 29 July 2013

Parched Costa del sol is useless for Lepidoptera

After a week away in Spain, I feel slightly humbled at how beautifully lush our countryside is and how much life there really is here, today I was walking around a town park and I lost count of how many Butterflies I saw.
Whilst away I did manage to see plenty of Geranium Bronze, Scarce Swallow-tail and a few Vestals and a single Hummingbird Hawk-moth mind. Whilst looking for moths in one of the reserves (of which we saw none) we chanced upon a Nightjar, the first I have ever seen.

 Back to my Caterpillars and 3 out of 4 of my Puss Moths have pupated, sadly one of the caterpillars seems to be not interested in either eating leaves or chewing bark for pupation, it has been like this for nearly two weeks now and will probably perish :( sad as we have got so attached to these critters.

 On the plus side I have eggs from a Garden Tiger which I kept in the fridge until I got back home....they should hatch soon I would hope.

 Even more exciting, was the fact that whilst picking Sallow leaves and feeding them to our Puss Moth cats, I introduced four other caterpillars by accident.
These have come on leaps and bounds and luckily managed a week with sallow branches shoved into an oasis block and only now, have I just replenished theior foodplant after 8 days.

 Pics below, I am guessing that they might be Muslin Moth? I am crap at Caterpillars so feel free to correct me.

 Trap on tonight for the first time in nearly two and a half weeks! time to add some more species to the garden, as it seems abit risky running equipment out in the field tonight with all these flash floods about.


Puss Moth Cocoon










Mystery Cats



Posted by Bennyboymothman at 19:48

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