Now that the weather has improved, especially with the night-time temperatures rising, our summer moth mornings will commence in April. These will take place on Wednesday morning starting at 10am and finishing at 12 noon and organised by two of our very able and willing volunteers. To make sure that things would run smoothly, we had a trial session on 27th March, which produced a reasonable start to the moth morning season.
The mercury-vapour, Robinson trap, was placed in the woods by the wildlife garden, the mercury-vapour, skinner trap was placed by the toilet block and the atinic, skinner trap was placed in the wildlife garden. Later one of our traps will be placed in a nearby cottage garden.
Twenty-seven moths of nine species were caught in our traps . Highlights were Nut-tree Tussock and Water Carpet. The most numerous was Clouded Drab with 10 caught between the three traps. The best intruders were 5 Caddisflies (Stenophylax permistus) and a Great Silver Water Beetle (Hydrophilus piceus).
Information supplied by Julie Stroud