The red twins....

A decent night for weather, and the trap was reasonably busy with 25 moths. I had a couple of Chestnut which gave me the first oppurtunity to use this very good article ( http://213.253.6.41/webzine/article.asp?a=3135 ), unfortunately, despite a promising initial look, they were both normal Chestnut (I've still not seen Dark). Best things in the trap was only my second Red Chestnut, and a year-tick of some Twin-spot Quaker.

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9th March:

12 Small Quaker

5 Common Quaker

3 Twin-spot Quaker NFY

2 Chestnut

1 Small Brindled Beauty

1 Clouded Drab

1 Red Chestnut NFY

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Chestnut

Small Brindled Beauty

Twin-spot Quaker

Red Chestnut

Anyone want my Brindleds?

Yet another scorching day, so I had to give the trap a go in the garden last night, despite still clear skies. Once I got to the trap, I was just about able to force my way through the floods of Brindled Pugs to find something different! A first for the garden was awaiting, as a Red Chestnut appeared, along with my second record of Oak-tree Pug. A little more variety in terms of species, but Brindleds aside, still not great numbers.

23rd April:

91 Brindled Pug (just an estimate if truth be told!)

4 Oak-tree Pug NFY

4 Hebrew Character

3 Clouded Drab

2 Common Quaker

2 Shuttle-shaped Dart

1 Red Twin-spot Carpet

1 Garden Carpet NFY

1 Frosted Green

1 Red Chestnut NFG

Red Chestnut (I tried to use a torch to improve the light, but its just saturated it)

Oak-tree Pug

Three of my four Oak-tree Pugs

No Sloe but quite a show

I went on my first field trapping session of the year last night, as it had been a hot day. I visited Bookham Common with Paul Wheeler in the hope of Sloe Carpet. There's wonderful habitat there, with massive Blackthorn thickets everywhere, too early for the Nightingales too! Despite this, we had a great night, and in just two hours (it got cold under the clear sky very quickly) we managed 19 macro moths, and a load of micros too. These included species that I had not expected to be out yet, and three new species for me. A Small Brindled Beauty was quite late, we had an Early Tooth-striped, and two Red Chestnuts. We also discovered some Brown Hairstreak eggs that had been marked by someone with some string. Quite a night!

6th April, Bookham Common:

9 Water Carpet

7 Common Quaker

6 Scorched Carpet

3 Clouded Drab

3 Frosted Green

2 Small Quaker

2 Red Chestnut*

2 Shoulder Stripe

2 Brindled Pug

2 Hebrew Character

1 Early Thorn

1 Streamer

1 Satellite

1 Engrailed

1 Small Brindled Beauty*

1 Oak Beauty

1 Early Tooth-striped*

1 Nut-tree Tussock

1 Oak-tree Pug

Water Carpet

Small Brindled Beauty

Shoulder Stripe

Scorched Carpet

Red Chestnut

Oak-tree Pug

Oak Beauty

Early Tooth-striped