Field Trip - Hexton Chalk Pit - 17/06/16

On Friday I was joined by Andy and Roger to sample some mid-June moths from this excellent chalkland site.

The day had been completely cloudy but still warm and then the inevitable happened, the sky started clearing...great I thought but then as I drove due West from Stevenage towards Hexton, we had some cloud coming, it looked a little on the angry side though but still it would keep the temperature up nicely.

Well, the dark grey sky was quickly overhead of us and then the rain started! And it didn't stop either and it just got heavier and heavier. At this point we had already put our traps out, it was really soul destroying to say the least.

Andy got his genny going and we re-treated just in time to witness several flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder.

Hexton Chalk Pit is quite high and the last  place you want to be in an electrical storm is somewhere high up with conductive equipment and holding an aluminum net handle.

We all took shelter in Roger's car for a good 45 minutes and then braved it again as the storm seemed to have died out and the rain had stopped, it was still pretty warm too.

Apart from a little rain as we packed up at 2am it stayed dry and we did get some nice moths for our efforts, but they were in quite low numbers and of not many species.

Highlights were several Wood Carpet and Grass Rivulets, an excellent site for both having seen them before in 2014 and 2015.

Wood Carpet was also new to Andy, so i'm really pleased we bothered to persevere.  

Apart from that it was the usual fair really, it was evident that the flash flood had killed it all a bit and frustrating that some places on the same night were completely dry.

I guess that is the risk of trapping on the edge of the Chilterns, it seems to have an eco-system all to itself!

Numbers below are approximate as it was really hard to record the moths because of the wet conditions.

Catch Report - 17/06/16 - Hexton Chalk Pit - 3x 125w MV Robinson Trap and 1x Blacklight Blue Actinic trap

Macro Moths -  49 Species

Angle Shades 1 

Beautiful Golden-Y  1

Beautiful Hook-tip 4

Broken-barred Carpet 2

Brown Rustic 2

Brown Silver-lines 1

Burnished Brass 2

Clouded-bordered Brindle 1

Common Marbled Carpet 2

Common Pug 1

Common Swift 20+

Elephant Hawk-moth 1

Fern 2

Flame 2

Flame Shoulder 2

Grass Rivulet 8

Green Carpet 2

Grey Pug 5

Haworth's Pug 2

Heart & Dart 10

Ingrailed Clay 3

Large Nutmeg 6

Light Brocade 2

Light Emerald 2

Lime-speck Pug 1

Marbled Minor 3

Marbled White-spot 2

Middle-barred Minor 2

Mottled Beauty 2

Mottled Rustic 1

Orange Footman 2

Pale Tussock 1

Purple Bar 1

Rustic Shoulder-knot 1

Scorched Wing 1

Setaceous Hebrew Character 15+

Shades Pug 10+

Shears 15+

Silver-ground Carpet 3

Silver-Y 1

Small Phoenix 1

Small Waved Umber 1

Snout 3

Straw Dot 2

Tawny Marbled Minor 2

Treble Lines 15+

Willow Beauty 1

Wood Carpet 4

Yellow-barred Brindle 1

Micro Moths - 22 Species

Scoparia ambigualis 20+

Agapeta hamana 8+

Eudonia pallida 5

Crambus lathoniellus 10

Aphomia sociella 1

Agapeta zoegana 2

Scoparia subfusca 1

Cnephasia sp 2

Plutella xylostella 15+

Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 4

Cochylimorpha straminea 3

Notocelia cynosbatella 1

Notocelia uddmanniana 1

Nematopogon schwarziellus 2

Notocelia trimaculana 1

Phycitodes binaevella 1

Scoparia pyralella 2

Cochylis atricapitana 1

Eudonia lacustrata 1

Eudonia pallida 1 

Chysoteuchia culmella 3

Pandemis cerasana 2

Eupoecilia angustana 2

Notocelia trimaculana

Wood Carpet

Grass Rivulet

Nematopogon schwarziellus