7 moth-ers met up at Bawdsey picnic site last night to try and see the saltmarsh form of Northern drab, a moth most hadn’t seen for a few years. Matthew had reported the moth was on the wing, having trapped it at the nearby Bawdsey Hall in the previous week so we were hopeful of seeing our target. 2 traps were put out on the saltmarsh beside the river Deben to target the best habitat for the moth, with the other lights run in the more sheltered picnic site. Moths seemed to trickle in very slowly in the picnic area so we went off to search the saltings by torchlight to see if we could find any moths sitting up on vegetation or any larvae. The first of these searches revealed nothing really, and the saltmarsh traps too remained empty. After a look around the other lights plus some refreshments we were back out on the marshes searching again. This time, 2 Northern drabs were located resting on dried plant stems, and another flew in to one of our torches. Matthew then telephoned from the picnic site to say one had come in there too, so it seemed the moths had just started flying with the time at around 11pm. It was then decided to pack up as nothing else was really coming in, and it was whilst packing away what we thought were the 2 empty saltmarsh traps that another Northern drab was located on the outside of the furthest trap, making a total of 5 seen.
Other sightings of note included Frosted green (a few), Engrailed, Shuttle-shaped dart and the first Clouded border of the season. A batch of Ground lackey eggs was also found whilst searching the marshes, wrapped round a plant stem in a tight batch. Numbers of moths generally very low, as seems to be the norm at present.
Still, everyone went home happy as the target moth was seen.
Neil