First Decent Moth Trap for 2012 – 26th July 2012

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Jul 262012

The moth trapping year so far has been disastrous across the country.

Many people running moth traps have commented on how poor the trapping results have been. The weather has been the main culprit with months of cold & wet conditions. It wasn’t until early July that the weather finally settled down to warm & dry conditions and my first trap of the year was over the evening of 25th July. A decent result overall from an actinic, “neighbourhood friendly”, garden trap. A total of 150 individual moths – 29 macro species & 8 micro species. Highest number was 50 Dark Arches, always my most common macro species to be trapped during the season. A further trap was ran at Kings Newton which was far more productive, being close to good woodland habitat. Several good moths were trapped, a new moth for me was White Satin, a scarce & local species in Derbyshire, along with another scarce species, Scarce Silver-lines. I hope for more warm & dry weather between now and end of October and then maybe there might be a few migrants about.

Full Results – MACROS Single Dotted Wave 2 / Ribband Wave 6 / Garden Carpet 1 / V Pug 1 / Magpie Moth 1/ Scalloped Oak 1 / Engrailed 1 / Willow Beauty 2 / Buff-tip 1 / Dingy Footman (1st garden record) / Common Footman 2 / Scarce Footman 1 / Short-cloaked Moth 1 / Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing 1 / Lesser Yellow Underwing 3 / Large Yellow Underwing 5 / Heart & Dart 3 / Flame 1 / Double Sqaure-spot 1 / Bright-line Brown-eyes 2 / Cabbage Moth 1 / Dot Moth 1 / Miller 1 / Dark Arches 50 / Common Rustic 9 / Uncertain 7 / Rustic 2 / Fan-foot 1 / MICROS – Epinotia tenerana 1 / Small Magpie 1 / Chrysoteuchia culmella 19 / Catoptria falsella 2 / Catoptria pinella 1 / Brown House Moth 5 / Carcinia quercana 1 / Eudonia mercurella 5 / Gold Triangle 1 /