674 Moths and 126 Species In One Night !

[Tim_Ward]

674 Moths and 126 Species In One Night !

Steve Hind dropped by my Henbury (Macclesfield) garden on Monday night and between us we set 3 Robinson traps. The following morning we spent around 5 hours emptying the traps. In all I recorded 674 moths of 126 species; 21 of these species were firsts for my garden. The number of species is likely to increase since there are several moths still waiting for dissection by Steve.

Steve tells me that the Sycamore was new to SJ87, as were both Cochylis atricapitana & Eudemis profundana. Dingy Shears was last seen in SJ87 in 1967 and Fen Square-spot in 1987.

I think I would have struggled to identify the various Pugs and micros without Steve's help and would probably have mis-identified Eudonia mercurella (very similar to other more usual crambids), the Slender Brindle, the Dingy Shears and the Sycamore. I would also have taken all week to check the various photos against the reference books !

Steve provided some very useful tips and this will definitely improve my future trapping/id skills.

[Tim_Ward]

I should add that Steve also identified leaf mines around my garden of 5 additional species and, just to round things off, he spotted Purple Hairstreaks flying around the top of my Oak tree !

Tim

[SteveH]

One word .... Brilliant ..... if that's not three words, or 10.

Cheers,
Steve