Reedbed and Damp Meadow

Here in VC55, we have to maxmise our mothing efforts to get the rewards. We don't have the luxuries of more southerly counties with loads of plush ancient woodland, or any coastal sites, nor for that matter any proper heathland or moorland. Hence the multi-light overnight approach, or the other trick as employed last night - covering two sites on one night.

I headed straight to Watermead CP South and set up a 125W MV over a sheet, 3 x 125W Mv traps and 1 x 20W/11W actinic/CFL combo covering the reedbad around the southern lake. Meanwhile, Adrian was over at Cossington Meadows deploying 3 x 125W MV traps to run unattended before he then joined me at the sheet. We ran the WCPS traps until c01:00, and then both headed over to Cossington to empty the traps there meaning that we were done, packed up and heading home by c02:30. It's not ideal as a few bits get missed emptying by the trap and torch light, but nevertheless we scored with a few target species and added a number of dots to the maps for both sites. I'd also forgotten what a complete pain in the arse running a sheet by a reedbed is - we were absolutely overrun with caddisflies including a number that landed on the bulb and immediately got welded into place. The smell of masses of roasting caddisflies reminded me of the 2001 foot and mouth cow burning.

As ever you'll have to wait for the summaries, but here's a couple of shots to give an idea of what we were seeing:

Crescent - Watermead CP South

Southern Wainscot - Watermead CP south

Double Dart - Cossington Meadows (actually a pretty scarce moth in VC55 these days, and one I've not seen here since 1999)

More abuse for the new car - parked in a reedbed