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

Saturday, 3 October 2015

Last field trip of the year at Hemel - Last but not Least..Carpet!

Yes, it's that time of year again where I pack up my field equipment and replenish bulbs, broken eggtrays, buy a new choke etc etc, and what with the nights drawing in now it is practically impossible for me to drive in rush hour traffic for an hour to try and beat the dusk.
We sort of went out in a bang though and after a warm sunny day with highs of 18 degrees again, the sky was clear and it was getting damp and I knew the waning moon (still bright) would be up soon, then the weather forecast actually got it bang on! It started to cloud over from the East and eventually obscuring the moon and getting thicker every 20 mins or so. Things were looking up.
The moth numbers weren't huge which is to be expected this time of year, but we got a great variety of different kinds and some early and late records thrown i to mix it up a bit. 
Traps were run from 7pm until around 12am and it was great to see some really fresh moths.

All the traps had very mixed results with just a few in some, but the best bit of the evening was proving that a good old bit of ivy searching is always profitable this time of year.
I found plenty of Snout feeding on it, a single Emmelina monodactyla and then some better species, namely Brindled Green, Red-line Quaker and Brick.
Merveille du Jour are always a treat to see as well and I recorded my latest ever and probably the latest County record of Least Carpet!

106 moths of 31 species

Catch Report -  01/10/15 - Gadesprings - Hemel Hempstead - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap 1x 22w Actinic + 26w CFL Trap and 1x 40w Actinic + 26w CFL Trap

Macro Moths

3x Sallow
17x Snout
13x Lesser Yellow Underwing
9x Setaceous Hebrew Character
1x Least Carpet
1x Square-spot Rustic
2x Merveille du Jour
4x Common Marbled Carpet
6x Beaded Chestnut
1x Mouse Moth
1x Red-line Quaker
2x Brimstone Moth
12x Large Yellow Underwing
1x Small Square-spot
1x Frosted Orange
2x Red-green Carpet
1x Garden Carpet
5x Lunar Underwing
1x Pink-barred Sallow
2x Brindled Green
3x Burnished Brass
1x Copper Underwing
1x Brick
1x Chestnut

Micro Moths

4x Eudonia pallida
4x Epiphyas postvittana
2x Emmelina monodactyla
1x Acleris emargana
1x Pleuroptya ruralis
2x Acleris variegana
1x Acleris rhombana

Red-line Quaker












Merveille du Jour













Pink-barred Sallow













Chestnut













Brindled Green













Brick













Least Carpet
Posted by Bennyboymothman at 10:38

4 comments:

  1. Simon Douglas Thompson3 October 2015 at 21:44

    THe MDJs have arrived!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Trent Duval4 October 2015 at 11:05

    Nice lot there mate, Least Carpet is known to have a late Sept/Oct generation, I had one in the garden on Aug 30.
    Haven't seen Brick for a while, it seems to have disappeared from The Dells but I always check the Ivy flowers. MdJ numbers seem to have crept up over the last 5 years so I'm hoping to see it return again this year, always get a buzz out of seeing these beauties.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lucy @ A Natural Interlude5 October 2015 at 14:57

    Hi Ben, great to see the final trapping of the year went so well in Hemel. Super set of photos too. I must get out one evening with a torch and see what can be found around some local Ivy ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bennyboymothman5 October 2015 at 18:39

    Thank you so much for the lovely comments from you all. Simon - I'm Looking forward to trapping my first garden MDJ of the year, they aren't common here though!
    Lionel - Yep, Brick had declined from 2008 to 2013, last year and this year they are more common than ever, lovely to see.
    Lucy - Thanks, yep it was very successful considering it wasn't overly warm, but warm enough, the cloud cover certainly helped and 31 species was very rewarding!

    ReplyDelete

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