After a lot of cold nights and me thinking that was going to be it for the year, both last night and this evening have turned out to be a bit milder with a few moths around.
Just come back from a short hour’s wander around part of the golf course checking tree trunks by torchlight. This revealed a bit of a hatch of Winter moths going on with around 30 males seen, mainly on Oaks. I would say that they are now starting to get going here having only seen one other so far in the last few days. They have peaked in early December in previous years at this site – when the main hatch is happening I can find hundreds of them on the trees. Also found around 10 Northern winter moths on Birch trees, my first for the year and quite probably my last addition to this year’s moth total. Singles of December moth, Mottled umber and Scarce umber also found. No flightless females of any of the species stated above found again possibly an indicator that they are all just starting to emerge as I quite often find those too.
Trap running in the garden tonight as well for a few hours.
Neil
Update: trap run until 10pm, 3 moths caught – 2 December moth and a Yellow-line quaker.
A check of the security lights around the clubhouse today (29th) revealed: Mottled umber, Northern winter, Scarce umber (3), December moth and an Autumnal moth (checked id by looking at claspers).