New season begins with a good catch at Purdis.

After seeing a few moths around security lights at work this week thought I’d give a trap a go up in the woods here to see what early spring stuff was about. Very pleased to find a good number of moths in and around the trap this morning, including a couple of surprises. Amongst the more usual Winter moths, Mottled umbers and Spring ushers were singletons of both Small brindled beauty and Oak beauty, my earliest ever records of both. In fact I’ve never seen either species in January before, they normally appear at their earliest here at the end of February. I’m guessing the cold snap late last year followed by the mild spell now has tricked them into early emergence. With cold weather due to return perhaps this wasn’t a good idea for them to appear!
Full list recorded: Spring usher 23, Mottled umber 9, Winter moth 4, Chestnut 4 and singles of Oak beauty, Small brindled beauty, Pale brindled beauty and Satellite. Gets the year list off to a good start.

Neil

Trap from the 11th January

Trap from the 11th January

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One Response to New season begins with a good catch at Purdis.

  1. Raymond Watson says:

    My spring near the coast is usually not as good as yours and at home the fact that I am not in woodland also doesn’t help. Spring Usher is scarce for me at any time and I haven’t seen it yet. So far I have Winter, Mottled Umber, Dotted Border, Pale Brindled Beauty and Early.

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