Sunday 26 July 2009

moth pics from last few nights trapping

Hi all,

I decided to lug the car battery and moth trap into the depths of Arlesey nature reserve late on Friday which was hard work and I wondered if it would pay off. After getting up at 7am on the Sat to go and check it (hoping it had not been damaged by someone!!) I realised all the hard work had payed off!! Again I'm not sure on some of the IDs but here goes:

Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow underwing:Early Thorn:Boardered Beauty:Clouded Boarder:Chocolate tip:Scalloped Oak:Common Wainscot:Shaded Broad-bar:and the star of the show, a stunning poplar hawkmoth:The ones I couldn't ID (names will be inserted as I find out!):

1: Dark Arches:2: Single-dotted Wave3: Straw Underwing.4: Pale Prominant:On the walk back there were butterflies all over the place, the freshly emerged painted ladies were lovely:Comma:Hoverfly shadow on a large white:A tatty 5 spot burnet:And these Roesel's Bush-crickets, although my book states they are confined to the south east so I may be wrong..?:I also set the trap in my girlfriends garden in henlow and caught many rustic agg. as well as the following:

Scarce Footman:Star of the show here was a lovely Canary-shouldered thorn:
Really catching the mothing bug - it's great fun and I'm learning a lot!

Dan

Friday 24 July 2009

Moths moths glorious moths!!

I recently bought a heath moth trap and have traped 3 nights in a row in my village back garden. I have been very happy with the results as it has been wet and windy on most nights. Here are the moths I am relatively happy with the ID on:

Common Rustic (a few of the morphs):Marbled Beauty:Marbled Beauty and Common Rustic:Silver Y moth:Straw Dot:Lesser Yellow Underwing:Dusky Sallow:Early Thorn (2nd generation):Cabbage Moth:Now for a few that I can't find an ID for so any help would be appreciated, you can click on the immages to view them large...

1. about 20mm long...2. About 40mm long very nice one...3. 30mm long...11 species so far not including the micros and a few of the ones that lie really flat, I will start to learn about them soon :-).

Off to the local nature reserve tonight hoping for something a little different.

Saturday 11 July 2009

Insects at chicksands wood

took a trip to chicksands wood looking for white admiral, purple emporer and white letter hair streak. We saw 2 of the hope for species but missedd out on the emporer.

Butterflies:

Comma and it's larvae:Small Skipper:Large Skipper:Speckled Wood:White letter hairstreak:Large White:Gatekeeper:
Other insects:

Longhorn beetle:Weird flies that look as if they were wearing ice hocky masks:Common Darter:As well as the butterflies photographed we saw small white, white admiral, ringlet. Also brown hawker.

This gives us 10 species of butterfly which we were very happy with.

Dan