FlyinginFordham: Turn it off and shut it down!

On Friday night I ran my trap for a couple of hours before deciding to shut it down.

The rain was so heavy, that moths were doing backstroke on the patio! Not good and not fair on the moths.

I did however pot a few new ones up amongst a busy old trap. Not surprising as it was warm at 16 degrees.

Clancy's Rustic was the first new for the year species potted up, surely resident now in this area, as the wind was from the north-west.

A rather nice form of Oak Nycteoline was also potted up during the terrible rainstorm, the third one this year and yet another completely different form.

Come the morning, there were still quite a few moths still in the trap, much preferring to stay in the dry I guess, rather than brave the elements! A White-line Dart was the best moth observed, another new Noctuid moth for the year.

Also, during the daytime, a rather smart Nemapogon species was attracted to the HYL lure. I'm fairly confident it is variatella, which would be new for my garden and British list. But it will need dissecting to separate from cloacella. The white head is quite prominent on it though.

The weekend wasn't great and night time temperatures fell away to 10c with mist and extremely dewy grass.

There are signs of some warmth heading our way this week which is great.