Dungeness - if it's shingle, sallow scrub or radiation you want then this is the place to go! We ran our traps around the long pits area:
The long pits are immediately north of the nuclear power station
We ran traps roughly within the yellow boundary - all shingly sallow scrub
When we arrived in the afternoon, it was warm and sunny with a light breeze and cloudless sky. Very nice, but not very good prospects for mothing. The trapping sites looked like this:
Shingle with sallow scrub
Shingle and nuclear power
Shingle
Sallow scrub and shingle
It took a good two hours to deploy everything, but we were ready in good time to light up just before dusk. As soon as everything was running, me and Adrian headed over to
The Pilot for a very welcome couple of pints and to get some really good fish n chips to take out. Considering the location, the pub was absolutely rammed with locals having a meal out. The food was on the high end of pub meal prices, but it was excellent.
Shortly after the beer and fish, we set out on a lengthy tour around the traps. We were obviously hoping to pick up some decent migrants, but I think honest expectations were more realistic and especially so when we'd seen that Square-spot Rustic was likely to be the commonest moth of the night. Another tour seemed to confirm that it was slow-going, though we did start to see a couple of good species. The gennies were topped up and we called it a night early to leave the traps running and get dawn start to empty them and redo all the hard work in reverse.
The list is still being compiled, but despite the lack of exciting migrants it is going to be a very respectable total both in terms of species and numbers for the time of year (over
1500 of 70sp).
Main highlights for me were a macro and pyralid tick:
Dark Spectacle - one I haven't seen as it's a very scarce moth in VC55
Cynaeda dentalis - a Dungeness speciality that should be over by now, really pleased to see this
Next up on the highlight stakes were five species I've seen before but a good while ago:
L-album Wainscot - superb smart moth
Feathered Brindle - quite a few of these in all variations
Feathered Ranunculus - sadly a worn individual
Four-spotted Footman - a non-spotted male
Yellow Belle
Amongst the remainder were:
A reddy-brown
Pearly Underwing
Lots of really smart fresh
Autumnal Rustic
An oddly coloured
Knot Grass
A few good micros being worked on at the moment, more images and detail on how the list is shaping up to come.
The long pits are immediately north of the nuclear power station
We ran traps roughly within the yellow boundary - all shingly sallow scrub
When we arrived in the afternoon, it was warm and sunny with a light breeze and cloudless sky. Very nice, but not very good prospects for mothing. The trapping sites looked like this:
Shingle with sallow scrub
Shingle and nuclear power
Shingle
Sallow scrub and shingle
It took a good two hours to deploy everything, but we were ready in good time to light up just before dusk. As soon as everything was running, me and Adrian headed over to The Pilot for a very welcome couple of pints and to get some really good fish n chips to take out. Considering the location, the pub was absolutely rammed with locals having a meal out. The food was on the high end of pub meal prices, but it was excellent.
Shortly after the beer and fish, we set out on a lengthy tour around the traps. We were obviously hoping to pick up some decent migrants, but I think honest expectations were more realistic and especially so when we'd seen that Square-spot Rustic was likely to be the commonest moth of the night. Another tour seemed to confirm that it was slow-going, though we did start to see a couple of good species. The gennies were topped up and we called it a night early to leave the traps running and get dawn start to empty them and redo all the hard work in reverse.
The list is still being compiled, but despite the lack of exciting migrants it is going to be a very respectable total both in terms of species and numbers for the time of year (over 1500 of 70sp).
Main highlights for me were a macro and pyralid tick:
Dark Spectacle - one I haven't seen as it's a very scarce moth in VC55
Cynaeda dentalis - a Dungeness speciality that should be over by now, really pleased to see this
Next up on the highlight stakes were five species I've seen before but a good while ago:
L-album Wainscot - superb smart moth
Feathered Brindle - quite a few of these in all variations
Feathered Ranunculus - sadly a worn individual
Four-spotted Footman - a non-spotted male
Yellow Belle
Amongst the remainder were:
A reddy-brown Pearly Underwing
Lots of really smart fresh Autumnal Rustic
An oddly coloured Knot Grass
A few good micros being worked on at the moment, more images and detail on how the list is shaping up to come.
