Saturday, 5 March 2011

An Empty Moth Trap!

We had quite a heavy frost overnight and the minimum temperature was -3.1 degrees centigrade so I wasn't at all surprised to find that there wasn't a single moth in the trap this morning!

So the total number of moth species seen in the garden this year remains at just one - a winter moth attracted to light and found on the kitchen window in January.

Instead of identifying moths I spent some time browsing through this excellent provisional Moth Atlas recently published by Butterfly Conservation.


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4 comments:

  1. The Quacks of Life6 March 2011 at 06:34

    provisional?

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  2. Ragged Robin6 March 2011 at 14:42

    According to the Atlas its "Provisional" due to gaps in covrage because of under recording or missing records, biaises in recording towards recent records as historical records are geographicaly patchy (at the moment), and there may be errors. Hope that explains :D

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  3. The Wessex Reiver6 March 2011 at 18:17

    Moth trapping at minus 3 is dedication. I'll look forward to the warmer evening reports. BTW Kilnsey Nature Reserve in Yorkshire near Malham did a moth trap in July 2010, over 300 caught of 50 different species. Take your moth trap if you head up there!

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  4. Ragged Robin7 March 2011 at 10:27

    Thanks for the tip about taking the moth trap to Yorkshire, Andrew. I still regret not taking it on holiday to the Isle of Wight last year as I am sure I would have trapped a lot of species I am unlikely to ever get in the garden.

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