Monk’s Hole, St. Olaves, a rewarding evening.

Keith Trapped this site last month and he invited me to join him last night. It’s an excellent site predominated by mature birch, but containing a wide variety of deciduous and conifer woodland bordered by marshland, – my first visit to this area of woodland and very impressive. This variation was reflected in our results for the night that totalled 39 species (only 4 of which were micros) and around 120 moths, running traps for 3 hours.
Highlights were Reed Dagger, Birch Mocha, Dwarf Pug, Peacock Moth, Acleris logiana with some nice fresh firsts for the year of Shears, Pale & Lesser Swallow Prominent, Oak-tree Pug, Small Phoenix, Least Black Arches (10), Lunar Marbled Brown, Yellow-barred Brindle, Maidens Blush, S. pyrella & C. proximella. Scalloped Hook-tip was most abundant moth (12).
It was good to find another local area where Birch Mocha is present. This makes 3 sites in the Fritton, St. Olaves, Herringfleet woodlands where we now know this very local moth survives although one of these sites has been under threat from possible gravel excavations. The other 2 sites are very safe.
Our MV’s & our new 60w actinic traps performed well and I was happy to log 15 firsts-for-the-year and Keith had about the same. The bittern was booming down on the nearby reedbeds.
Looking forward to going there again.

Brian

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