Langport 29 November 2006

Udea ferrugalis 1
December moth 1
Winter moth 1
Sprawler 1
Silver Y 1

John Bebbington

Closworth 29th Nov
December moth 7

Langport 28 November 2006

A cold clear night last night but still 2 moths:
Satellite 1
Sprawler 1

John Bebbington

John's late Dark Arches is interesting.  Until 2004, our latest record was 18-Oct.  In 2004 James recorded one on the 8th an another on the 14th December.  I see that these records are annotated by James with 'Extremely unseasonal'!  That said, late November is very unusual too.

Closworth 27th.Nov.
One Silver Y

Langport 26 Nov 06

I put the trap out but it was rather wet and windy. When I looked this morning there was a large noctuid sitting under the lid of the trap - underside was unfamiliar so my hopes rocketed but it was just a Dark Arches! The last one in the trap was on 26 August.
Also 1 December Moth and one migrant:
Udea ferrugalis 1

John Bebbington

Langport 24 November 06

- a better night!

Udea ferrugalis 4
Autumn Green Carpet 1
Red-green Carpet 1
Winter moth 1
Feathered thorn 2 (one was a superb female - first female I've ever caught)
Angle Shades 1
Blair's Shoulder-knot 1
Silver Y 1

Langport 22 Nov 06

Udea ferrugalis 2

Mottled Umber 1

Red-line Quaker 1

Langport 19th and 20th November 2006

19th: Silver Y 1

20th: Angle Shades 1

Again, just one moth!

I (rather optimistically) put the Robinson on last night and just as the light was striking up something buzzed out of nowhere and went straight in.  At the time I though this looked like the December Moth.  So I wasn't too surprised when the only moth in the trap this morning was:

Full trap list (Robinson 125W, ST5715, VC9, Dorset):

• 1631 December Moth Poecilocampa populi 1

December Moth

p.s. In a previous post I mentioned the new Firefox web browser.  This has an amazing feature in that it will check your spelling in the blog composing box here (and on any web page for that matter) - rather like Word does - so you can correct this prior to posting.  Of cause this doesn't help with scientific names but the English dictionary is very good.

Closworth17/11/2006
Silver Y
Chestnut 2

Closworth13/11/2006
Sprawler
Blair's shoulder knot
Feathered thorn 2
Udea ferrugalis

Langport 12 November 2006

• Rush Veneer 1
• Red-green Carpet 1
• Setaceous Hebrew Character 1 (very late but pristine)
• Brick 1
• Angle Shades 1
• Sprawler 1 (first of the year)
• Silver Y 1 (plus 1 larva still feeding on Lonicera telemanniana on my shed)

John Bebbington

Closworth 10/11/2006
December moth
Udea ferrugalis
Red-line quaker 3
Feathered thorn 4

Left the Actinic out last night and it did manage to bring one moth in - amongst large numbers of flies and a caddis or two.  I have seen the odd Feathered Thorn (Colotois pennaria) at lit windows this week but activity has certainly quietened down.  Having said that, Portland have still been getting migrants all week including the Cosmopolitan.

Full trap list (Actinic 40W, ST5715, VC9, Dorset):

• 1769 Spruce Carpet Thera Britannica 1

Ah well, I can now get my head down and crack on with entering data backlog and 'start' thinking about all those other jobs that need doing during the Winter.

Just added two new pages to the website:

Comparison of modern and Turner (1955) status (Macro species)

Comparison of modern and Turner (1955) status (Micro species)

These allow you to see current status definitions and compare these with those of Turner in 1955.

Also, worth mentioning is that the website software has recently been changed so this will send compressed data to your browser if it can support this.  This can vastly improve the download time for large pages like these.

And on this topic, can I also recommend the new Firefox web browser.  This is available free at Mozilla-Firefox  and is an alternative to Internet Explorer.  This is an excellent product and has many features (like popup blocking) to improve your browsing experience.

Thanks to all those who attended the AGM last Thursday and a particular thanks to John Bebbington for his excellent slide show.  Amongst other things, he has inspired me to make a more concerted search for larvae next year.

I have just revised the text of the Constitution on the website, in line with the meeting outcome and retained the original text as Constitution (original).  I'll post the minutes of the last meeting, approved at the AGM, here shortly.

2 November 2006 Peter Tennant After the excellent AGM at Ruishton despite a cold night (-3 Centigrade) I found a Red Swordgrass in my trap here at Whitefield.  My only previous record was six years ago in autumn 2000.