The nice thing about moth trapping is that you never quite know what’s going to appear. Overnight conditions last night weren’t too good for trapping but it still produced a few goodies (no, Bill Oddie wasn’t sat in the trap!).
The Privet Hawk-moth is the largest moth the your likely to encounter on the British Isles, as the photo shows, its a real brute. This is first Privet hawk-moth I’ve ever trapped so as you can imagine, I was pretty pleased to see it sitting on the side of the moth trap this morning. Heres a photo to show how big it is!
Here’s a few close ups of the creature. I struggle to think of this as an insect, its almost like a small mammal but that could just be me?
Over the past few weeks the moths traps have been producing some really good catches and its been really encouraging to see a lot of the reedbed specialities doing well. The Silky Wainscot is a wetlands species which is classed as Local in the southern half of the UK and has been recorded before at Radipole but one night last week I recorded 54 in one trap! So its not just birds that are benefiting from all the hard work that goes on at Radipole Lake.