Sunday 23 August 2009

Looks like rain again..



Very warm tonight...in fact so warm I expected it to rain so I wasn't too surprised by a light shower which caused panic at 1am but I was surprised at 2:15 when it started raining quite heavily and didn't stop!. I put one of the large 'centre of the garden table' type umbrellas over the trap just in case and it seems to help with several moths resting on it at the end of each trapping session...it's saved the lamp from the rain on 2 or 3 occasions already.
There were quite a few moths around again and at one point there were no less than 3 Old Lady moths on the sheet(none in the trap though) but what I ended up with in the trap was rather disappointing. I took 90% of last nights catch to a park about 3 miles from home but many of the same species in similar numbers turned up again tonight, is it possible that some moths do return to specific places to feed, breed or to do whatever else they need to do?.
No new species again so you can have another micro but this time I think I know what it is....Pyrausta Aurata?.
The trap was out from 9pm to 2:15am

Tonight's Log

14 Large Yellow Underwing
5 Lesser Yellow Underwing
1 Broad Bordered Yellow Underwing
1 Lesser Broad Bordered Yellow Underwing
3 Setaceous Hebrew Character
3 Willow Beauty
4 Square Spot Rustic
2 Riband Wave
2 Flame Shoulder
2 Yellow Shell
1 Garden Carpet
2 Common Marbled Carpet
1 Copper Underwing
1 Dark Marbled Carpet
3 Lempke's Gold Spot
4 Gold Spot
2 Common Wainscot
1 Smoky Wainscot
1 Silver-Y
2 Brimstone
1 Shuttle Shaped Dart
1 Orange Swift

1 comment:

  1. It's possible that the night bfore, not all of the Moths were on the wing, they do travel yes sometimes upto several miles away from their habitats, others like Setaceous Hebrew Character, Silver-Y's could be migrants travelling from as far as South of France, in fact in the last month or so i've had a few from possibly even North Africa! fascinating how they travel so far just to be in your garden.
    Yes that's the Mint Moth Pyrausta aurata.

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