With a week of showers and breezes it was looking as though this meeting might go the way of others this year and get cancelled but after some showers during the day conditions looked fair for an evening’s mothing. Eight people turned up and we moved from the reserve car park in convoy to park up near the reserve and then use Keith’s truck to ferry the equipment across the railway crossing and into the reserve. Thirteen lights were run along the edge of the fen areas and out on the fen itself.
Rather surprisingly traps placed on the track at the edge of the fen and bordering some scrubby woodland fared pretty poorly in comparison to lights out in the middle of marshes. This was a long night of trapping with the last being trap closed down at dawn. Overall a very good night with nearly 160 species recorded in my book and some interesting species amongst them.
Some wine ropes were also put out along the track on the edge of the marshes but were pretty unsuccessful – no Double Darts on these. It felt a bit of cool night at times and not the sort of conditions for sugaring to be very productive so not too surprising.
Highlights were Double Dart, Shaded Fan-foot, Dotted Fan-foot, Plain Golden Y, Epinotia cruciana, Cream-bordered Green Pea, Nascia cilialis, Striped Wainscot, Brachmia inornatella, Argyresthia pygmaeella, Phlyctaenia perlucidalis, Valerian Pug, Pinion-streaked Snout, Coleophora taeniipennella and Donacaula mucronellus.
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- Aethes beatricella
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- Blastodacna hellerella
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- Dingy Shears
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- Dusky Brocade
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- Four-dotted Footman
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- Gothic
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- Plain Golden Y
Tony