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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

March 2009 moths (1 Viewer)

It's interesting how variable the catches are. I think that one factor may be that we had quite a lot of sunshine during the day yesterday, which may have encouraged moths to emerge. The evening was mild, calm and cloudy, which often seems to be best. I only had my trap on till c 10 pm. so if I had left it overnight I would probably have caught more - but I'd also probably have been late for work!
I'm not bothering tonight as it has been dull all day.
Ken
 
luke said:
I've just had a look at the Portland bird observatory website and they took a Dark Sward Grass last night. its a very interesting website if you havnt had a look already.

http://www.portlandbirdobs.org.uk/aa_latestnews.htm
Click to expand...

Hi Luke,

Thanks for that, always nice to know when the first immigrants hit the coast. Portland is a great site, would be nice to live there. Also if you're looking for moth news sites may I point you to this one, I'm slightly biased here as I am a regular contributor but it has quite detailed trap list catches and always throws up a few interesting moths during the year. Not a lot at the moment but the archieves go back a few years and I'm sure you'll go back from time to time, updated daily as well.

www.planetthanet.org

Barry.
 
Guess what..... I blanked again last night!

Barry: i go to portland every autumn and stayed a few days last year. it was great to have a look through the traps. I remember seeing a few Clancys Rustic and Cyress Carpet. There was loads more but they were the ones i remembered.
 
What light are you using Luke just out of curiousty? i'm surprised you didn't get anything :C

Last nights catch consisted of

1x Shoulder-stripe [NFG]
6x Hebrew Character
1x Small Quaker
2x Agonopterix heracliana
2x Emmelina monodactyla
4x Oak Beauty
1x Amblyptilia acanthadactyla [NFY]
9x Common Quaker
2x Clouded Drab
2x Dotted Border
1x Pale Pinion

Taking a trip to local Woodland tonight and hoping for an Early Grey
 
luke said:
Guess what..... I blanked again last night!
Click to expand...

yup, sod all here as well! for the record i'm only using a 100w blended atm though. not sure my current garden is ideal either - thankfully i'm a student and i'll be going home to my overgrown cheshire garden before long. my dad lives in winsford and he got dark chestnut, oak beauty, 3 dotted borders, early gray, march moth and some other stuff last night with the same bulb.
 
Surreybirder said:
It's interesting how variable the catches are. I think that one factor may be that we had quite a lot of sunshine during the day yesterday, which may have encouraged moths to emerge. The evening was mild, calm and cloudy, which often seems to be best. I only had my trap on till c 10 pm. so if I had left it overnight I would probably have caught more - but I'd also probably have been late for work!
I'm not bothering tonight as it has been dull all day.
Ken
Click to expand...

I think it's more down to location. It was very sunny and warm during the day here and mild that night but I wasn't surprised to only get one moth. Things are usually slow here until the second half of March. Hang on in there Luke!
 
Bennyboymothman said:
What light are you using Luke just out of curiousty? i'm surprised you didn't get anything :C
Click to expand...

I'm not. I remember following early season trap reports on UKMoths in years gone by and there were always a few who were getting large lists from February onwards, while the rest of us had to wait until further into the year. It isn't even a north south thing. Some sites just seem to get the species earlier. I will probably see all of the species mentioned by Bennyboymothman but up to a month later. I'm sure you will start to catch something very soon Luke.

It's one of the joys of mothing that every site is unique. Luke's site will probably get things later in the year that most of us can only dream of.
 
I got a 40w Actinic, i got close neighbours to a MV wouldn't go down very well.

I think i am not catching yet because of the altitude of where i live. my house if over 1000 feet asl so temperatures are not quite what they are at the coast or more sheltered inland sites. brian is right though, i didn't catch anything Mega last year but i was catching plenty of moorland species which could easily produce a real goody. A friend from pontypool which is about 7-8 miles away caught a Silurian in his trap a few years ago!
 
Yup its certainly location
In the midst of winter my Garden was producing bugger all! but trying in a large Woodland at the same time with temperatures down to -3c saw nearly a hundred Winter Moths.
A friend years ago once trapped just over 1600 LYU's in one evening in Epping Forest, that is abit too much for me!

If your getting the itches like I was at the beginning of this year and wanted a Moth, then i'm afraid you sort of have to goto them and getting mobile cost me under 100 quid which I think was well worth it.

Good luck everyone tonight, if your trapping.
 
And its worth it for those hard to come by species! spooky stuff though on your own at times with just the whine of the battery pack and Moths making the fallen leaves rustle :eek!:
 
I bought to carry out some surveys on some local nature reserves. Unfortunatly with all the bad weather and the gen playing up i never got around to getting out with it!
 
The weather has picked up now thankgod! looks like it has been worth the wait.
I only trap in the field for max 3 hours as I can't leave it unattended and I need my bed unfortunately so i'm probably missing out on a few late night flying species, I suppose its balancing this with my other half as she comes first.
 
This year i am holding some public mothing events, so the Gennys certainly going to well uses this year. Do any of you guys hold public events eg for National Moth night?
 
Just had a Mottled Grey in the trap! Not the most exciting moth but i am off the starting blocks. Hopefully there'll be a few more moths in the trap by the morning.
 
Things are improving. Friday morning I had:

E.monodactyla
Double-striped pug
Dark Chestnut
Common Quaker

Last night an Early Thorn came to the lit window. |=)|

And then the wind and drizzle so I didn't trap - but it's fine again this morning!

Nerine
 
Last night the 160w MBT attracted the usual suspects, the wind got pretty strong!

5x Emmelina monodactyla
2x Clouded Drab
2x Oak Beauty
7x Common Quaker
3x Small Quaker
6x Hebrew Character
1x Dotted Border
2x Agonopterix heracliana
 
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