e-mail: moths@littlesnails.com
mob: 07769 652528
Location (All records unless otherwise stated): TQ 348 248. (V.C. 13)
Description: Well stocked garden in Lindfield, West Sussex. There are small shrubs, apple trees and herbaceous perennials. Small areas of the garden are allowed to grow wild but these are also planted with spring flowering bulbs. The garden also now has a pond, dug at the beginning of May ’08, and is rapidly becoming established though more vegetation is still needed. Behind the garden is a small river on the other side of which are allotments all of which are tended.
Close by though not in the garden are Ash, Oak, Alder, Birch, Maple, Hazel, Willow, Sallow, Hawthorn and Lime. The allotments are surrounded by hedges containing a variety of plants, though mainly Blackthorn and Hawthorn.
Nearby is a nature reserve with a wide variety of habitats but mostly secondary broadleaf woodland, blackthorn scrub and water meadow. Open farmland starts within about 200m from the garden.
Trap: Skinner Type with 40W Actinic light source.
Principle references:
Waring P. and Townsend M. (2006), Field Guide to the Moths of the Britain and Ireland, British Wildlife Publishing.
Skinner B. (1998) Moths of the British Isles (2nd Edition), Viking.
Manley C. (2008) British Moths and Butterflies, A & C Black.
Websites most frequently used:
Butterfly Conservation - Sussex Branch’s Moth Galleries
Ian Kimber’s UKmoths.org.uk
Mike Wall’s Hantsmoths
Invaluable Assistants: Phoebe (13) and Lucas (9).
Number of species:
This year: 12
This month: 3
Single year view: 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | Mean (μ) | All
Wednesday 10 March 2010
Overcast, 1°C, windy.
Re-run of last night: bitter wind, miserable, empty trap.
Wednesday 10 March 2010
Mainly cloudy with clear spells, 1°C, windy.
Even though it didn’t in any way seem like it was going to be any good I put the trap out and crossed my fingers - not a single living thing in the trap in the morning.
Friday 05 - Tuesday 09 March 2010
Still no sign of spring, and high pressure is dominating with, admittedly, pleasant sunny days but cold nights (-6°C one night).
Thursday 04 March 2010
Oak Beauty - Biston strataria
Mainly cloudy, 2°C, windy.
I suppose a night where the strength of the wind is enough to prevent a frost is never going to be the most productive, nevertheless, the year’s first Oak Beauty meant that it was worthwhile, if not particularly productive.
Geometridae
- 1 Oak Beauty Biston strataria Hufn.
Noctuidae
- 1 Satellite Eupsilia transversa Hufn.
Wednesday 03 March 2010
Partial cloud cover, 0°C, breezy.
Well, it was pretty chilly.
Oecophoridae
- 1 Common Flat-body Agonopterix heracliana Fabr.
Tuesday 02 March 2010
Mainly clear, misty by dawn, -2°C, still.
Don’t know what possessed me really, but still, at least we caught something.
Noctuidae
- 1 Satellite Eupsilia transversa Hufn.
Monday 01 March 2010
The prospect of a cold and frosty night meant that there seemed little point in putting the trap out.
