Bringsty Common May 11th

Plans for a trip to Haugh were put on hold when the rainfall radar showed huge amounts of rain that way. Here we had half an inch in half an hour before dusk and followed by lighter showers until around 6.30am when light rain started up again. Excited by double digit night temperatures I ran two 125W mv's in the garden and was rewarded by the best catch of the year so far. 38 species of macro and to date 4 micro. Shining the torch outside the house after dark over the Common reveals an abundance of Brown Silver-line flying over the dead bracken (from last years growth) and the traps reflected this also with a catch of 18. Brimstone also put on a good show with 15 and likely a lot more as most sit around the trap and would be gone by the time I wandered down to look. The first Alder moth came in. The "normal" form of Silver Cloud also came in, and so far since I arrived in this fair county I have only ever recorded the darker form melaleuca. Many of the moths were pristine despite the wet traps, including a fresh Cream Wave, very green Green Carpets and all of the Orange Footman moths (4) were bright and fresh too. The first Treble-lines, Common Lutestring, White Ermine, Clouded Silver, Least Black Arches, Chinese Character and Broken-barred Carpet, to name but a few.

Just on an aside as a matter of interest, I am busy going through the Rosamaund Herefordshire Rothamsted trap micromoths at the moment for 2016, kindly supplied to me by Adrian Riley. He did a Diamond-back count in early June, when the "invasion" started and recorded 8,076 of them in the trap which covered a 3 day period. That's a lot and a lot of counting too.


Peter Hall

Bringsty Common: Alder moth

Bringsty Common: Brown Silver-line

Bringsty Common: Muslin moth

Bringsty Common: Orange Footman

Bringsty Common: Red Twin-spot Carpet

Bringsty Common: Pale Tussock (female)

Bringsty Common: Silver Cloud