National Moth Night - Pickworth Great Wood, 07/06/2008

This is one of the best mothing sites in Leicestershire and Rutland (VC55). We have had some brilliant nights there in the past, and we decided to head there for our NMN effort. To ensure the best chance of a good range of species, we ran multiple traps and stayed overnight to go through the traps at dawn. It worked!! Before lighting up there were a few Woodcock roding over our heads - always good to see. The overall catch for the night was a superb 1065 of 107sp. from 18 traps/lights. I ran a 125W MV light over a sheet, 3 x 125W MV traps, 1 x 250W metal halide trap and the 80W actinic with a catch of 443 of 85sp. Adrian Russell ran 6 x 125W MV traps, a 16W actinic and an actinic/tungsten combination trap, with a catch of 445 of 80sp. Derek Lee ran 3 x 125W MV traps & a 40W actinc, with a catch of 177 of 52sp. There were no new species for the county on the night, but plenty of highlights. The numbers are from my traps/lights followed by the overall number for the night in brackets: Triaxomera parasitella 1 [1] Elachista bisulcella 2[2] Carpatolechia proximella 1 [3] Spatalistis bifasciana 1 [2] Ancylis diminutana 1 [1] Poplar Lutestring (Tethea or) 2 [5] Clay Triple-lines (Cyclophora linearia) 1 [1] Cream Wave (Scopula floslactata) 6 [13] Pale Oak Beauty (Hypomecis punctinalis) 16 [51] Brindled White-spot (Parectropis similaria) 0 [1] Orange Footman (Eilema sororcula) 16 [24] Grey Arches (Polia nebulosa) 3 [6] Light Brocade (Lacanobia w-latinum) 1 [1] Alder Moth (Acronicta alni) 2 [5] Coronet (Craniophora ligustri) 1 [3] Marbled White Spot (Protodeltote pygarga) 2 [14] The trap emptying session was made all the more enjoyable by the camping style bacon sarnies, singing Blackcaps and Chiffys, calling Great Spots and warming sunshine. A great nights mothing. I've got a load of photos to sort out from this session - I'll have to sort them out and post separately in the next few days. I'll also post a link to the full listing on the VC55 Yahoo Group.