Welcome

Hello and welcome to my moth Blog. I now reside in a small village in East Cambridgeshire called Fordham. My Blog's aim is to promote and encourage others to participate in the wonderful hobby that is Moth-trapping.
Moth records are vital for building a picture of our ecosystem around us, as they really are the bottom of the food chain. They are an excellent early indicator of how healthy a habitat is. I openly encourage people to share their findings via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.
So why do we do it? well for some people it is to get an insight into the world of Moths, for others it is to build a list of species much like 'Twitching' in the Bird world. The reason I do it....you just never know what you might find when you open up that trap! I hope to show what different species inhabit Cambridgeshire and neighbouring counties.
On this Blog you will find up-to-date records and pictures.
I run a trap regularly in my garden and also enjoy doing field trips to various localities over several different counties.
Please also check out the links in the sidebar to the right for other people's Blogs and informative Websites.
Thanks for looking and happy Mothing!

KEY

NFY = New Species For The Year
NFG = New Species For The Garden
NEW! = New Species For My Records

Any Species highlighted in RED signifies a totally new species for my records.

If you have any questions or enquiries then please feel free to email me
Contact Email : bensale@rocketmail.com

My Latest Notables and Rarities

Saturday 10 December 2016

Weekly round-up

A quick report of the last week's efforts using my garden Robinson trap with different light sources.
Slim pickings but happy to pick up what probably will be the last species of the year, namely Winter Moth and Mottled Umber (Scarce has sporadic good and bad years here)
A bonus Udea ferrugalis on Tuesday night didn't even survive the night in the fridge for a photograph the next day, I guess it had one heck of a journey.
A bonus Caloptilia semifascia as well on Thursday night, my 8th this year now which is a record and an almost identical Mottled Umber last night to Tuesday's specimen (I'm glad I kept it now as I probably would have said it was the same moth in the dark and grey conditions we've had all week).

Photography has been a nightmare with leaving for work and returning from work in the dark nearly and even today the dull conditions aren't much better and the last few days it hasn't really got light at all.

Here are my results - VC20 Stevenage, Hertfordshire

06/12/16 - 125w MV

3x Winter Moth [NFY]
1x Mottled Umber [NFY]
1x Udea ferrugalis
1x Acleris schallariana

07/12/16 - 125w MV

2x Winter Moth
1x Acleris schallariana

08/12/16 - 40w Actinic

2x Epiphyas postvittana
1x Caloptilia semifascia

09/12/16 - 9w UV Led

1x Mottled Umber
1x Epiphyas postvittana

That is all :)
 
Caloptilia semifascia











Mottled Umber













Winter Moth












Mottled Umber pair











Bedraggled Udea ferrugalis











Poor lighting resulted in this
 
Posted by Bennyboymothman at 10:07

1 comment:

  1. Steve Gale10 December 2016 at 10:13

    Ben, that mildewed piece of wood is a great background for the moths. I'm now on the lookout for a similar object.

    ReplyDelete

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