Hill of Beath, 26-08-2014

Trap out all night on a cold clear night. Catch? Three caddis flies.The light was off in the morning so I'm not sure how long it was on. I suspect the cold air has a bad impact on battery life

Dumbarnie Links 21/08/2014

Open skies and a starry night with not much to show in terms of moths. We ran the heath trap from about 21:30 until about 23:00, while also doing some walking around and some sugaring on a number of posts around the reserve. 6 Hedge Rustics came to light - a species which has been recorded here once before; also in August.

There was a second species which featured heavily - a Square-spot Rustic 'type', which I need to check now I'm back from a weekend away. Three of these came to sugar while another two came to the light. Once on the sugar mix they were loth to move and one sample taken from there was very easily potted. (There's a S-S Rustic here which looks almost identical, and flight time and habitat are both good)

There was also a Common Rustic which came to the light. No micros were seen of any kind, and no Geometrids, although we did pack up at 11, so you never know what might have come. There wasn't visible much sign in the head-torches that we were missing anything though.

Aside from lepidoptera the light brought in a cranefy which had been previously recorded on te reserve, while the sugar brought in earwigs, harvestmen, a tiny ground beetle, a couple of flies and a lacewing - the only species which was an addition to the reserve list.

Cullaloe 15/08/2014

A decent night at Cullaloe before the howling winds came. Temperature started at 12.5 and dropped to only 11 in the morning. The only new species recorded was Sallow, of which there were 4. Three were fully-patterned and one was pale - so the two images in the field guide.

Species list

Common Wave (1)

Dark Marbled Carpet (2)

Dun-bar (1)

Small Phoenix (1)

July Highflyer (13)

Common Rustic (1)

Lesser Yellow Underwing (4)

Large Yellow Underwing (1)

Shaded Broad-bar (2)

Sallow (4)

Cullaloe 08/08/2014

Left the moth trap out overnight but slept in the following morning. Not sure quite where it went wrong but only 5 moths were recorded. Maybe they all escaped before I arrived, but inside the trap were only two moths!

Small Phoenix

Chevron

Dark Marbled Carpet

Cullaloe 02/08/2014

After a day of rain, and going into a foggy evening I dropped off thetrap at Cullaloe with high hopes. Two new species for the reserve and a reasonable collection of various moths. New for the reserve were Pebble Priminent and Early Thorn - both very nice. From Falkland on Friday and here there seems to be a second gen of Small Phoenix which had completely died off after an early summer/late spring showing.

Pebble Prominent

Early Thorn

Chevron

Small Phoenix

Falkland Palace, 01/08/2014

"Creatures of the Night" annual public moth trapping at falkland saw three MV traps going, but the temperature dropped sharply as the sun went and things were strangely quiet. The trap in the normal place looked like it would have done well. That is, it might have done well if it hadn't drawn in a swarm of wasps from a nearby nest! It had to be relocated, so it probably didn't do as well as it might have. Only about 20 species had been recorded by the time I left at 11:45'ish, but the number went up to 34 by the morning, with 350 individual moths noted, many of which were, naturally, Large Yellow Underwings. There were some nice species that I missed which would have been new to me, not least Gold Spangle.

New for the palace list: 
Macros: Slender Brindle, Haworth’s Minor, Gold Spangle, Grey Chi
Micros: Mother of Pearl, Brown China Mark, Bird Cherry Ermine, Crambus perlella, Crambus Lathoniellus 


Macros
Twin-spotted Carpet
Slender Brindle
LYU
LBBYU
6-striped Rustic
Common Carpet
Common Rustic
July Highflyer
Smoky Wainscots
Common Wainscot
Dark Arches
Dotted Clay
Dun-bar
True-lover’s Knot
Clay
Broad-bordered YU
Lesser YU
Rosy Rustic
Haworth’s Minor
Gold Spangle
Burnished Brass
Antler
Grey Chi
Small Phoenix
Riband Wave
Barred Straw
Garden Carpet

Micros
Mother of Pearl
Brown China Mark
Bird Cherry Ermine
Agriphila tristella
Crambus perlella
Blastobasis Adustella
Crambus Lathoniellus

Pictures

Burnished Brass

Brown China-mark

Slender Brindle

Bird Cherry Ermine

Six-striped Rustic