About the Team

Billy Dykes...

I started trapping in early 2010, so am still relatively new to moth-trapping, but up to the end of 2011, have recorded around 410 species in my small suburban garden, and am now fully addicted to the hobby! Rarities are mainly limited to those that are expanding their range, with Hoary Footman, Oak Processionary, Small Ranunculus, Waved Black and Tree-lichen Beauty more or less expected during Summer.

I currently trap with a dual 30w Actinic Robinsons moth trap. My garden is pretty basic, with a small hazel tree in the centre of the lawn, and a flowering buddlia and a few conifers at the back, the former of which attracts a huge array of the garden's moths, including a Hummingbird Hawk-moth in 2008. Around the patio, a few herb plants attract day flying micros and the lawn plays host to grass moths in the summer. It was nice to attract Orange-tailed and Yellow-legged Clearwing to a pheromones lure in the garden border in June 2011.

Visit my main blog at billsbirding.blogspot.com

My 15W Actinic Skinner Trap...

Sean Foote...

Hi all,

My name is Sean Foote and I live in Haslemere is south-west Surrey. I first started trapping in July 2010, and just like Billy, I have well and truly been bitten by the bug (or should that be the moth)! I have so far recorded an amazing 250 macro species in my tiny suburban garden, and I have only used a bottom-of-the-range trap (a 15W Actinic) for most of that time.  However, I have recently started using a 125W MV trap.

Kenneth Noble...

I live in the South-eastern corner of Surrey, under the Gatwick flight-path. (Wasn't the volcano a mercy?!)

I run a Robinson 125W trap but usually switch it off at bedtime, so I don't get the enormous catches that some people do. I started mothing about six years ago and my garden list is over 520 species now (I'm nearly up to 600 for Surrey). My main claim to fame was adding a tiny micro to the Surrey list - Argyresthia cupressella -though to be honest I wouldn't have known what it was if Graham Collins hadn't IDed it!

I enjoy photography - some of my efforts can be found on Mark Elvin's brilliant website: http://www.wildlife-galleries.co.uk/gallery2/main.php

Ken is also the founder of the Surrey Birders and Surrey Moths Yahoo Groups

Ken's 125W commercial Robinson's style trap...

Angela Evans

I have only been mothing since August 2011 so I am very much the inexperienced beginner of this blogging team, but what I lack in knowledge I try to make up for in enthusiasm!   I use a 125W Robinson trap in my garden in Wimbledon, but am fortunate enough to have the whole of Wimbledon and Putney Commons as my mothing playground and my partner and I often run traps out there during the milder weather.  No mothing claims to fame yet, although a very out of season Common Quaker I trapped in November 2011 did get a mention in the Entomologists Record, and a Gypsy Moth on about my second ever solo trap caused great excitement.

 

I also enjoy photography but moths aren't proving to be my photographic forte, as you will see from the poor efforts in my posts!