Last night, for the first time in well over a year thanks to [lack of] health etc, I ventured out with traps into woodland. I headed to Gisborne's Gorse, what is essentially mixed woodland within the Charnwood Lodge LRWT reserve. It's not 'real' woodland though, it was created in the late 19th century and part of it is more like a large-scale landscaped garden (there are a couple of old houses within the planted area). With such a long hiatus, it meant it was also the first time my 'new' car has been loaded up with traps. I've had it [Cupra Born EV] since Jan 2024, and the x3 traps, gennie and cable reels easily fitted in though I had folded the seats down just in case.
I had no great expectations for the night, although I had a couple of hoped-for species. I was only intending to run the traps for three hours or so - no point going overboard so early in the season.
And so it was that I lit up around 18:15, and ran the traps until packing the last one around 21:45. There were still moths coming in to the traps and it was still c7°C at that time, but I wasn't seeing any increasing diversity. I'm sure if I'd run for longer I would have had more Noctuids and maybe one or two more species, but the eventual total was 204 of 18sp. which is pretty fair for this early in March.
The couple of hoped-for species were Spring Usher which I'd not seen since 2012, and Yellow Horned that I'd not seen since 2013. Mottled Grey was also on the radar, though I was sure I was too early for that. No sign of any Spring Usher to the traps though, quite possibly too late this year. But Yellow Horned was bang on, I ended up with x51 of them and all box-fresh. Other highest counts were x42 March Moth and x36 Oak Beauty.
Given the abundance of fallen and felled wood alongside the track, I opted to photograph a few whilst out using the ever-reliable TG-6 and light guide. Smaller micros came home though, including a couple for dissection.
Yellow Horned
Engrailed
Satellite
Tortricodes alternella
Oak Beauty
March Moth
Pale Brindled Beauty
Brindled Pug
The only surprise as such was not the species, but the context. This female Dotted Border was sat on top of one of the traps basking in the glow of the light. The trap was not directly underneath the canopy, so the only way it could be there would be being 'flown in' whilst in-cop with a male or simply walking towards the light and crawling up. Given I only saw one male Dotted Border, and that it was in a different trap, the latter explanation seems more likely but of course it's a guess.
Dotted Border
Not too many micros aside from several T. alternella.
Ypsolopha ustella
Agonopterix ocellana
Acleris ferrugana/notana [dissection pending]
In compiling this post, I've reminded myself what an absolute pain in the arse it is to keep editing image sizes etc on Blogger. I think I'd realised this before and stuck to uploading at 'view size' only, but Bluesky seems to screw images up that are not already sized up. So going forward, it's going to be quicker and less of a pfaff to just save the images in two sizes. It will mean that anything on here will revert to what you see is what you get - no bigger image when you click on one.
I imagine one or two read the blog title and were delighted horrified that I might include a Coldplay track. Fear not.
So I've spent most of the last week head-scratching and fannying about with my
PC. It started last Saturday when an Excel file I was in the process of
opening simply disappeared into the ether. No sign of it in the Recycle Bin,
and Hidden Files set to show anyway so no sign of it - simply gone. It was a
file I'd been sent from Butterfly Conservation that came on a time-limited We
Transfer link, so I assumed the file must have some sort on in-built
self-destruct based on the date and thought no more of it. Then later in the
day, the same happened with another file. Shite - all the hallmarks of virus
activity. I have Norton 360 running, so nothing should get past anyway, but
even so I then spent the whole of Saturday evening running a full scan.
Nothing found, no virus on the machine or within the files.
I decided to back-up and move files about, and that is when it became clear
that the hard-drive on the PC was starting to throw a wobbly. The upshot is that I've not lost anything important, and all the key files and stuff I need
are recovered and or/backed-up, or at least recoverable. But I have lost a load of recent photo files -
essentially everything I'd taken/saved from the TG-6 since mid-August (the
last full back-up I did) - all the earlier files were still fine. This is a bit of
a pisser as it means that there a few significant moths and suchlike that I
can no longer re-edit or have anything better than the low-res versions I've
posted on here, Facebook, Naturespot etc. Still it could be a lot worse.
I'm usually pretty good at backing up, but of course unless you back up
literally every time you change or create a file then there is always a chance
of loss. I've sourced another external HDD and recreated my hard drive, and I've then completely deleted everything from the internal hard drive, run the
disk checker, saved a few files back onto it and de-fragged it again after
that. All seems okay, and probably will be for a good few GB but either way and have moved everything that I'm working
on 'live' to a One Drive synced folder. I've also backed up a few key files on
Google Drive for good measure. And I'll have to start backing up more
frequently - even more so now that I'm holding all of the VC55 moth data, not
just my own stuff. It's more of a time-swallowing ball ache than anything, certainly it's not fun.
The milder conditions in the last week brought one one or two moths. The lack of decent woodland close to home always limits the potential for much here in the winter period.
March Moth 28/01/2023 - the earliest ever here, first Jan record
Pale Brindled Beauty 02/02/2023
Early Moth 01/02/2023
Clouded Drab 03/03/2023
and a Mottled Umber from 25/12/2022 that I'd not posted
The garden traps have been out quite a bit more than I usually manage/bother in the first couple of months of the year, helped by being at home and February weather being generally excellent. Things have dropped off markedly over the last couple of windy wet weeks though. Mostly expected stuff, some a little earlier than usual, with one completely unexpected arrival ....
Rush Veneer - 28/02/2019
This turned up on the back of a pretty strong period of immigration into the UK, though far from the excitement that Crimson Speckled must have brought to a couple of recorders up and down the country. This is the earliest arrival on record for VC55.
So far the yearlist is up to 17 species, +4 in the larval stage and 2 leaf-mines. Here's all the macros:
Oak Beauty - 19/02/2019
Good to see this is now annual here.
Dotted Border - 14/02/2019
This has had a remarkably good year here.
Early Moth - 03/01/2019
15 of these to an outdoor light fitting with a 12W blacklight LED bulb up to mid-Feb.
Whilst I've not been running the garden trap, a 20W actinic light left on in an old outdoor light fitting is bringing in a few early moths (including Early Moths) and these two:
Dotted Border 25/01/2018
Pale Brindled Beauty 28/01/2018
Yesterday was mild and dry, and the forecast looked well worth a punt out with a couple of moth traps, so I spent a good couple of hours trying to get my gennies running. They've not been run for well over a year (maybe two!) and had been left in the shed with fuel in. They've never been properly maintained, but despite the abuse I always seem to get them going without too much effort. Yesterday was different though, and in the end I had to admit defeat and go to the trouble of completely draining the fuel out of the carb and tank, and then topping up with freshly bought fuel with an engine cleaning additive and some fresh 2-stroke oil. Spark plug was already clean anyway, as was the air filter. So another couple of pulls with fresh fuel and the oldest cheapest gennie was running again - result!
I headed out to Misterton Marsh, and had no intention of giving it more than a couple of hours in the early evening. I ran an 80W actinic and a 125W MV - and in then end I had 12 moths of 4 species: 1 x E. monodactyla, 1 x Early Moth, 8 x Pale Brindled Beauty and 2 x Chestnut. All were in the 80W actinic except for 1 PBB. I potted a couple of the latter for shots, and with the darker individual from the garden they show a good range of variation ..
Ran the garden synergetic last night for the first time this year. Four moths, three species - good to start trapping with a catch rather than a blank!
Still haven't got to grips with indoor photography using the bright led ring I bought. I can't seem to get the right white balance set regardless of what I do including using the photographers grey card. Need more practice, but for that I need more moths in the early/late season and more time. Here's a couple of not too bad quick shots in the meantime.
Pale Brindled Beauty
Dotted Border
Forgot to post a note a couple of weeks back about a lucky garden tick. I'd made some pack-up for work and then promptly forgot to take it in the morning so I nipped home at lunch. Whilst peering out of the kitchen window with a sarnie hovering in front of my face, two Cormorants flew over the garden. I've seen a few flyover Cormorants around here over the last couple of years, but these were the first over the garden.
And whilst I'm at it, here's an old photo from the garden that I found whilst sorting out some old files from one back-up drive to another.
