It's the national event for moths this weekend and as part of the annual Moth Night the RSPB team will be out this Friday night from 9pm with our Robinson light trap. On previous nights when we've set out traps we've recorded moths such as Map-winged Swift. Hebrew Character, Rustic Shoulder-knot, Antler Moth, Dark Arches and Marbled Beauty.
This year's theme for Moth Night is brownfield sites, by definition being sites that have been previously developed. Brownfield sites can support good colonies of moths and butterflies as well as other wildlife. They're areas that can be really variable with regards to the nature of what they previously would have been used for from railways to post-industrial sites to disused or former quarries, so this latter one fits in well with areas that are very much part of Dove Stone's landscape and history.
Here's my chance for a general point about brownfield sites. They're important sites for wildlife and yet brownfield sites are highly threatened environments being a high priority for redevelopment by both this government and previous governments to the cost of wildlife. There's also a culture in local authorities and communities of perceving brownfield sites as scruffy and unimportant areas that have to be tidied up. What's really good is those brownfield sites that have basically been abandoned, which allows them to develop naturally and become great habitat for, for example, patchy scrub, open woodland and just for open, bare ground.
You don't need a lot of equipment to carry out your own moth trapping. Here's a link to recording techniques http://www.mothnight.info/www/index.php/recording-techniques. Why not check out a brownfield site near to you ? And there are plenty of day-flying moths too, such as Cinnarbar moths so you don't even have to be out at night.
Back to Dove Stone's moth night. If you fancy coming along and taking a look at some of the moths that we've found then drop-in to Dove Stone's top carpark at Binn Green. We'll be there from 9pm. We're hoping that it won't be either too wet or too windy and that we can leave the trap running until the early hours. And on the Saturday morning from 11am to about 12noon we'll be on hand at Binn Green again to show what late night and early hour moths we found.
More soon...