Sunday 22 July 2018

Creatures of the night...

Back in the 1980's, my brother Duncan, our mate Rich Heddington, and myself were busy running regular moth traps from our family home in Chard. We caught and identified a large number of species over the years using a very powerful mercury vapour light trap borrowed from our secondary school.  It pulled hundreds of moths on a good night with the added advantage that we always had a good tan! Thirty eight years later and I'm still looking at moths.  This time courtesy of my friend Nigel Marven, who owns a twin actinic Skinner trap.

Last night we took the kids to stay in Nigel's family home on the east Devon coast, a prime opportunity to run the trap and my bat detector somewhere different.

Both provided good results with nine species of bat, including Leisler's, Lesser Horseshoe and a Barbastelle. The moth trap yielded 23 species of moths.

Beautiful location to run the moth trap.

Ruby Tiger - half-a-dozen of these
beauties in the trap.

Leopard Moth

Buff Arches

Pebble Prominent



Sallow Kitten

Nut-tree Tussock
Jake enjoying a book by head torch.



Pale Prominent

Flame Shoulder

Oak Eggar,  female

Black Arches
A stroll this morning produced good numbers of Comma butterflies along the local lanes with a single Painted Lady, six Holly Blues and four Wood Whites.

Pair of Wood Whites

Holly Blue


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