One-hundered-and-eighty! Game on at Farnham

I went trapping away from the garden by myself for the first time, using my MV. With power courtesy of the Rural Life Centre, I was able to trap last night in a recently felled clearing at Farnham Heath RSPB reserve. Conditions could not have been much better, with cloud rolling in just after dusk. I was kept pretty busy, although the final count of 43 macro species for the whole night is a tad dissapointing, possibly because of the late-ish time of year. Best was a White-line Dart, which pretty much a lifer (I saw one in a pot at Dungeness on a moth morning once). Also nice heathland species of Dotted Border Wave and Beautiful Yellow Underwing. My first adult Oak Eggar in Surrey too. I paid a lot of attention to the micros, to try not to loose any records by photographing them all for ID later. I'll do a separate post for those, once I have the ID's. One that I think I could do however, was Synaphe punctalis, which was very common. A couple of interesting Beetle vistiors too. I also have a Carpet which stumped me.

August 1st, Farnham Heath:

Yellow-tail

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Common Footman

Scarce Footman (loads!)

Oak Nycteoline

Ruby Tiger

Beautiful Hook-tip

Small Fan-footed Wave

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Oak Eggar

Riband Wave

Uncertain

Common Rustic

Beautiful Yellow Underwing

Yellow Shell

Rosy Footman

Lesser Swallow Prominent

True Lover's Knot

Black Arches

Dark Arches

Dingy Footman

Dunbar

Tawny-barred Angle

Pine Hawk

White-line Dart*

Dotted Border Wave

Plain Wave

Grey Pine Carpet
Nut-tree Tussock

Lime-speck Pug

Narrow-winged Pug

Brown-line Bright-eye

Scalloped Hook-tip

Dark Sword-grass

Willow Beauty

Oak Hook-tip

Horse Chestnut

Pebble Hook-tip

Large Yellow Underwing

Buff Footman

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Pine Carpet

September Thorn

At first I thought it was a Common, but the white lines are not clear enough. Any ideas?

Synaphe punctalis

Lesser Swallow Prominent

Dotted Border Wave

Plain Wave

Oak Eggar

Gigantic Pine Longhorn Beetle (it was at least the size of a Stag Beetle)

Eyed Ladybird


White-line Dart

Lets try and make the 200th blog post a good one chaps!

We go for Gold at Bisley

There was an event on at Sheet's Heath this evening, which is a heathland/woodland site near Woking, right next to Bisley shooting centre. However, the forecast looked appalling, with the rain careering in around 10:00pm. I thought it was worth going just in case. It did cloud over around 9:00, as forecast, but incredibly, we just experienced one or two light showers, until we packed up at 1:00, with no threat to our electronics thank goodness. With the cloud cover at least temperatures stayed constant, although it had not been a hot day. We had four traps running, so normally I would be a little dissappionted with the numbers we got, but considering the forecast, I was happy with anything! As a matter of fact quality was very high, with several scarce species, and three lifers. These included two heathland specialists, with Dotted Border Wave, and the stunning Purple-bordered Gold, as well as three Plain Waves (I was surprised at how striking the latter was, being smaller than Riband, with clear dots, but faint lines).

6th July, Sheet's Heath;

Dunbar

Riband Wave

True Lover's Knot

Swallowtail

Brown Rustic

Double Square-spot

Suspected

Dark Arches

Clouded Silver

Coronet

Iron Prominent

Purple-bordered Gold*

Oak Nycteoline

Mottled Beauty

Poplar Grey

September Thorn

Smoky Wainscot

Elephant Hawk

Buff Arches

Narrow-winged Pug

Heart and Dart

Peppered Moth (including a carbonaria example)

Scarce Footman

Striped Wainscot

Flame

Willow Beauty

Light Emerald

Lesser Yellow Underwing

Marbled White-spot

Grass Emerald

July Highflyer

Pine Hawk

Pebble Prominent

Buff-tip

Uncertain

Purple Clay

Heart and Club

Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing

Rustic

Plain Wave*

Silver Y

Common Footman

Dotted Border Wave*

Total: 44

carbonaria Peppered Moth

Suspected

September Thorn

Grass Emerald

Dotted Border Wave

Plain Wave

Purple-bordered Gold