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

Thursday, 16 April 2015

Field Trip - Hay Wood - Hemel Hempstead - 15/04/15


We made the first field trip of the year on the Boxmoor Trusts land last night, and after a scorching warm 25 degrees of a day we were hoping for a mild and still night and lots and lots of moths!
The target species for me was to see my first ever Brindled Beauty, a moth that has avoided me like the plague despite making concerted efforts during Springtime to trap in various locations across Herts and Essex.
Tell a lie I did see one....a dead one that Roger had brought with him and had found in his garden that a spider had been feasting on.
The anticipation of finding one tonight was even higher now!

We set up 1 trap at the old barn running from the electrics and then with the other 3 traps we ventured into Hay Wood to set the remaining 3 traps up.

About 30 minutes into darkness the wind got up quite significantly at times and coming from the North-East and with a clear sky things weren't looking too good and so we decided to pack up at around 11pm, nearly 4 hours was quite enough to sample a good selection of typical spring species.
Pick of the bunch was a pristine Frosted Green and the uncommon micro Semioscopis steinkellneriana.
Good numbers of Water Carpet (12) was also nice to see.
I really did expect to see Small Quaker, Brindled Beauty, Streamer, Yellow Horned and Shoulder-stripe (and less so Early Grey) all of which were absent on the night, but had we continued to trap through the night we may have added some of these to our list.
All in all a pleasing start to the 2015 field trips.

Catch Report -  15/04/15 - Hay Wood - Hemel Hempstead - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap and 1x 40w Actinic/26w CFL Suitcase Trap

Macro Moths

10x Engrailed
2x Double-striped Pug
12x Water Carpet
6x Brindled Pug
3x Clouded Drab
22x Common Quaker
7x Hebrew Character 
4x Chestnut
2x Nut-tree Tussock
4x Red-green Carpet
1x Frosted Green
1x Purple Thorn
2x Early Thorn

Micro Moths

1x Semioscopis steinkellneriana
4x Diurnea fagella
2x Agonopterix arenella
3x Dyseriocrania subpurpurella

Frosted Green












Semioscopis steinkellneriana
 
Posted by Bennyboymothman at 19:38

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