From the garden trap - 27/05/2008

I hadn't seen the forecast, but when I got home from RW last night at 21:45 it was still not fully dark, mild and fairly still. After the week in Jordan, a weekend in Devon and foul pissy weather on Monday night, these were (relatively) excellent conditions to put out the garden traps again. Before I went to bed at just gone midnight, both traps were lively and the actinic in particular was buzzing with geometers. I decided to get up early to go through the traps at a leisurely pace. However, I was rudely awoken at 04:50 by torrential thundery rain - bugger! By the time I actually did the traps at 06:45 it had stopped raining but both traps had a good 2 - 3 inches of water sloshing about the egg boxes. Nevertheless, the catch was pretty good! As you would expect after a week of non-trapping in late May there were a few new species for the year.

Total catch 107 of 30sp.(125W MV 43 of 24sp., 80W actinic 64 of 23sp.)

First for the year:
Firethorn Leaf Miner (Phyllonorycter leucographella) 1
Epiblema cynosbatella 1
Common Marbled Carpet (Chloroclysta truncata) 5
Broken-barred Carpet (Electrophaes corylata) 1
Freyer's Pug (Eupithecia intricata arceuthata) 2
Lime Hawk-moth (Mimas tiliae) 1
Flame Shoulder (Ochropleura plecta) 2
Small Square-spot (Diarsia rubi) 1
Bright-line Brown-eye (Lacanobia oleracea) 1
Sycamore (Acronicta aceris) 1
Dark / Grey Dagger (Acronicta tridens/psi) 1
Rustic Shoulder-knot (Apamea sordens) 4
Highest counts:
Light Brown Apple Moth (Epiphyas postvittana) 15
Green Carpet (Colostygia pectinataria) 15
Garden Carpet (Xanthorhoe fluctuata) 12
Common Pug (Eupithecia vulgata) 9
Clouded Silver (Lomographa temerata) 7


Lime Hawk-moth


Scalloped Hazel


Rustic Shoulder-knot


The Sycamore