Moths Hotting Up

Despite the temperatures dropping to 1.1ºC last night we still had quite a few moths to contend with. Many of them were on the pergola rather than in the trap, but there were a few unfamiliar ones to me so it took a bit of effort to identify them all.

The catch comprised of:

• Shoulder Stripe x 16
• Dotted Border x 3
• Pale Brindled Beauty x 1*
• Mottled Grey x2
• Early Grey x1*
• Chestnut x1

It looks as though things are hotting up and I’m going to be busy identifying and counting moths throughout the summer.

* = New to our garden

I’ve just spent the weekend in Conwy. I decided to head up to North Wales as there was a North Wales Moth Recorders’ Meeting at the Pensychnant Conservation Centre. I travelled there on Saturday, stopping on the way to do a few geocaches and arrived in plenty of time for the meeting.

After a coffee and a chat with some fellow moth-recorders we had a presentation by Zoë Randle the Moth Recording Coordinator for the Moths Count Project. She talked us through the successes of the Moths Count Project and Butterfly Conservations efforts to put moths on the map.

Butterfly Conservation have had funding from a variety of sources, and lots from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Zoë told is how this money had been spent. Most of has been spent on the website and the publication of national moth distribution maps. I’ve yet to have a close look at these, but they look pretty impressive, especially as many of them can be zoomed in to resolutions of 100m so that you can see exactly where moths have been recorded. Hopefully some of my records will start showing up on these soon. These really are ‘putting moths on the map’.

Money has also been spent on publicity and organising events such as the Garden Moths Count and National moth night. This prompted some ‘discussion’ as one person there in particular thought hat this was a waste of money that could have been spent on computerising historical moth records so as to allow for a better understanding of trends in distribution over time. However, I think that publicity and events are actually a good use of the resources they have. I for one wouldn’t be recording moths if it weren’t for such events. I may only be one small person doing my little bit but I’ve been recording moths, have been partly responsible for setting up the Ceredigion Moth Group and collating records from Vice County 46 and have been spending some of my time on a voluntary basis computerising the historical records.

Just a small amount of money recruiting new recorders and volunteers such as myself can pay dividends in the long run, which has to be better than directly paying to have historical records computerised. Of course such events also fall within the ‘community’ remit of the funding requirements which is why they have featured heavily in the activities of Moths Count.

After the ‘moth meeting’ I headed off to RSPB Conwy where I had a walk around the nature reserve where I saw a little Egret, found a geocache on the banks of the estuary and then stood and watched millions of starlings come into roost.

Not a bad way to spend a day and I almost felt like a naturalist by the end of it!

Little Egret, Conwy

The moth-trapping season is just getting underway and although we’ve yet to catch any moths in the moth trap, we are getting some attracted to the porch light. As I’m still fairly new to moth trapping, most of the species I catch at the moment are new to me, so here’s a new one from last night which I think is a Mottled Grey (Colostygia multistrigaria).

Mottled Grey

So far this year my moth-trapping exploits have been a little disappointing. We’ve put the moth trap out a few times but have had no success.

This has been made more frustrating by the fact that I have seen plenty of moths on the wing in front of my headlights whilst driving between Aberystwyth and Borth, or whilst up in the hills. Also whilst out mountain-biking at night in the hills and forests there have been plenty of moths attracted to our lights. Here at the coast though there is little protection and the moths have been scarce.

I was out mountain-biking last night and saw quite a few moths fluttering around so was pleasantly surprised when I got home and found 5 moths on the porch walls, attracted by the porch light. I quickly collected them and have this morning identified them.

• 3 x Shoulder Stripe (Anticlea badiata)*
• 3 x Dotted Border (Agriopis marginaria)*

I might put the trap out tonight to see what else we can get, but its good to get off the mark and have a few moths to record.

Morgan and I made use of our new RSPB membership and went for a cold winters walk at Ynyshir this morning.

Lots of Canada Geese about but Morgan was a little cold so we couldn’t sit and look for birds for too long. I did manage a couple of photos of a bird that I think is a juvenile Robin.

Juvenile Robin

Robin

I’ve put the moth trap out a few times this winter but with no luck, but last night I caught our first moth of the year near to the porch light.

A Spring Usher (Agriopis leucophaeria). Not a bad looking moth and hopefully one that is ushering in the spring, although, we’ve woken up to yet more snow on the ground this morning. I’m sure I’m going to be busy identifying moths soon.

Spring Usher

As you may know from recent posts I’ve started moth trapping and have been part of the formation of the Ceredigion Moth Group. It’s all a little ‘geeky’ but I quite enjoy the moth trapping, as does Morgan and learning more about the creatures around us is always a good thing. Keeping records of them and submitting them to the various interested parties makes it all feel a little more worthwhile, and in a small way these activities may help with the conservation of rare species.

In some respects I would rather be actively contributing to conservation in this way than simply donating money to conservation charities. However, as well as actively taking part in moth counting and submitting results to the Big Garden Bird Watch we also spent some money recently on becoming members of the RSPB and Butterfly Conservation.

RSPB

There are a few RSPB reserves locally and we do often enjoy a short walk at the Ynyshir Reserve, so becoming a member seemed like a sensible thing to do. The membership fees obviously go towards supporting the RSPB which should be the main reason for joining, but you get quite a it for your money too. As well as free entry to their reserves you receive a Quarterly Bird magazine with plenty of interesting articles in it and junior members such as Morgan get a ‘Wild Times’ magazine six times a year, featuring the adventures of Owlbert, Rookie, Red the squirrel and Squeak the mouse. You also get free gifts if you want them and RSPB bird guide book (which I already had).

Obviously you don’t really join for these benefits, but we were pretty interested in what Morgan would get for his membership fee as it is these things that will keep him interested in the wildlife around him.

Butterfly Conservation

The Butterfly Conservation membership is similar. For your fees you receive free entry to their reserves a ‘Butterfly’ magazine three times a year, a welcome pack and a garden butterfiles ID guide, along with advice on attracting butterflies and moths to your garden

Of course, you also get a nice warm feeling at having helped the conservation effort of our wild British birds, butterflies and moths.

Both organisations have decent websites where you can join them or simply donate. They both have lots of information online, not just about the organisations themselves, but about the birds and butterflies of the UK too., so check out their websites and join up too.

The Ceredigion Moth Group is up and running and we seem to be making some progress.

I’ve set up a mailing list so that we can all keep in touch with each other and we have been sending our records from 2009 to the new County Recorder. I only had a fairly small number of records from 2009 as I didn’t start moth trapping until late in the year, but I had an e-mail back from the County Recorder saying:

Your data have now been verified without amendment, and incorporated into the VC46 County list – many thanks.

It looks as though the records I kept were worthwhile and will go towards a greater understanding of the moths that are present in the area.

So far the County Recorder has received records from 2009 that amount to more than 9000 recordings. Not all are verified/processed yet, but they have been used to make a start on a County list which is being sent to ‘Butterfly Conservation‘ to be included in the forthcoming Butterfly Conservation Atlas.

We have a meeting / workshop planned for March 27th and there is a Moth Count Event in Conwy on 13th march that I may well go to. I’m getting quite ‘into’ my moths! If only there were some to trap here at the moment.

This weekend is the weekend that the RSPB have picked for their Big Garden Birdwatch.

All you have to do to join in and help with the data is sit down for an hour (preferably with a cup of coffee) and count the birds you see in your garden. You count the number of birds of each species that lands at any given time and then submit your findings to the RSPB. You can download a counting sheet to make things easier and then submit your results online.

I’m hoping to do it today, so don’t forget to join in. Every bit of data helps.

Just a couple of photos of birds in the garden. There are a lot that I still need to photograph from the garden species list and I’m sure I can improve on some of these too, but here’s a female Chaffinch and a Blue Tit.

Chaffinch

Blue Tit