Neil and myself popped down to Bawdsey Marsh last night and ran three lights out on the saltmarsh for a couple of hours. It was a little on the cool side and a gentle onshore breeze didn’t help too much.
Running the sheet near to the wooded area of the car park turned out to be a good idea as the two lights run out on the main area of saltmarsh had less than a handle of moths in them. At the sheet we had better success with a collection of Orthosias – Hebrew Character, Common Quaker, Clouded Drab, Small Quaker and Twin-spotted Quaker. Other moths recorded at light included Red Chesnut, Engrailed and March Moth.
We had a couple of larval records – some Scrobipalpa instabilella mines on Sea Purslane found before setting up the lights and a Square-spot Rustic larva found by torchlight.
However, there was no sign of the target for the night – Northern Drab. We’ll have to try again.
Tony