Field Trip - Roughdown Common - Hemel Hempstead - 11/05/15

Last night we made our second field trip of the year to the Boxmoor Trust’s land, this time we favoured trying one of the best ‘species rich’ sites that we are lucky to be able to survey.

Roughdown Common is a mixture of chalk grassland, unimproved grassland and woodland.

The target for the night was Light Feathered Rustic, a Thyme feeder. Roger was confident that Thyme still grew here as it is on the list of plants for the site.

We possibly may have been too early for it as it didn’t, or perhaps it just wasn’t there.

Lights were on at about 8.45pm and we ran three different traps covering part of the chalk scrape, woodland and the grassland.

The weather was pretty good, a clearish sky but slowly clouding over and by about 11pm it was full cloud cover and we even felt a few spits of rain.

The breeze was Westerly and although it was quite light, it did have a bit of chill in it by midnight.

The moths were quite quick to react to the lights with oodles of Green Carpet coming in first then Red Twin-spot Carpets and then Brimstones.

Cockchafers were everywhere and sticking to our clothes, nets and one even managed to crawl up my leg, then another dropped out of my other trouser leg!

We also went back to base camp at Gadesprings to check the trap that we had left running there, it was pretty disappointing and full of midges, but a few species were new for the night.

It was really nice to see some early summer species.

Catch Report -  11/05/15 - Roughdown Common - Hemel Hempstead - 1x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap & 1x 80w Actinic + 26w CFL Suitcase Trap


50 Species





Macro Moths

1x Blood-vein
5x Brimstone Moth
6x Brindled Pug
2x Broken-barred Carpet
1x Clouded Silver
4x Common Carpet
2x Common Pug
1x Common Quaker
4x Common Swift
3x Common White Wave
2x Coronet
1x Coxcomb Prominent
2x Double-striped Pug
1x Early Grey
6x Flame Shoulder
20+ Green Carpet
15x Least Black Arches
5x Light Brocade
1x Lime-speck Pug
5x Nut-tree Tussock
6x Oak Nycteoline
2x Oak-tree Pug
12x Orange Footman
2x Pale Prominent
2x Pale Tussock
4x Pebble Prominent
1x Purple Bar
15+ Red Twin-spot Carpet
1x Rustic Shoulder-knot
1x Scalloped Hazel
2x Seraphim
1x Setaceous Hebrew Character
1x Small Phoenix
1x Streamer
1x Treble Lines
3x V-Pug
3x Waved Umber
1x White Ermine
1x White-pinion Spotted
8x Yellow-barred Brindle

Micro Moths
 
3x Nematopogon swammerdamella
2x Monopis weaverella
4x Agonopterix arenella
1x Aphomia sociella
2x Tinea trinotella
2x Teleiodes luculella
3x Syndemis musculana
1x Caloptilia semifascia
1x Plutella xylostella
1x Pseudoswammerdamia combinella


Catch Report -  11/05/15 - Gadesprings - Hemel Hempstead - 1x 125w MV Robinson Trap


11 Species


Macro Moths

1x Green Carpet
2x Common Swift
1x Buff-tip
2x Pebble Prominent
1x Brindled Pug
1x Nut-tree Tussock
1x Pale Tussock
1x Flame Shoulder

Micro Moths

1x Mompha epilobiella
1x Aglossa pinguinalis

Coronet

Broken-barred Carpet

Seraphim

Yellow-barred Brindle

Lime-speck Pug

Caloptilia semifascia