Last night with the mild conditions it was too good a chance to miss in what has been a pretty mediocre early spring for moths. Still 8 degrees at dusk so ran 3 traps, 2 mvs in the woods plus a twin actinic at home. Turned off the actinic at 10pm, with 4sp caught including 2 Common quaker the first for the year. Other 2 traps full of March moth in the morning, 117 caught my 3rd highest total ever (best 140 in 2000 followed by 121 in 2011, no other counts over 100 in my database). 10 other species caught with new for year Grey shoulder knot, Agonopterix umbellana and Hebrew character. Another Common quaker also caught along with 6 Small brindled beauty and 10 Dotted border. Looks like spring could be just around the corner with those first sightings of the Orthosias.
Hope others were successful too if trapping was attempted.
Neil
Yes I ran at home last night and also up at Snape. Not so many species as you but also the first Common Quaker. March moth common and saw a few when driving back from Snape where I took a strikingly marked Acleris hastiana looking very much like a rufana having a very broad pale costal third.
No Orthosias up here yet on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, but we always seem to get them several days later than you do further south in the Ipswich area. Just 6 species on the evening of 25th (traps run dusk till 9.30pm). Pale Brindled Beauty the most common (26) and a few each of March Moth, Spring Usher, Chestnut, Tortricodes alternella and Agonopterix heracliana, the latter being the only new one for the year. Not yet seen a Satellite this year.
Brian