Saturday 19 March 2011

Bootiful...Oak Bootiful.

The fullest of full moons last night, with a white frost, down to 0 degrees. At 11.20pm it was light enough outside to still read the time on my watch, so it was a surprise to catch anything really...

Taxa
0688 Agonopterix heracliana 1
1663 March Moth (Alsophila aescularia) 1
1930 Oak Beauty (Biston strataria) 1 NEW
2139 Red Chestnut (Cerastis rubricosa) 1
2187 Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi) 1
2190 Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica) 10
2256 Satellite (Eupsilia transversa) 1 NFY

16 moths of 6 sp.

Oak Beauty was one of my most wanted species. Anyone south of the Tyne must be wondering what I'm on about but this one is just the 4th for VC68. What a superb moth...
It was nice to meet up with the Satellite again after the winter. This one has nice white spots, but I get orange ones too...

Reading Trent's blog (We are the Campions), it was strange to see him taking his trap in when the temp dropped to 2 degrees. If I had done that, I would scarcely have put a full night in! The warmest minimum night temp here so far this year has never been above 5 degrees...It looks like that might change over the next few days though with a mild spell forecast on Sunday / Monday.

Oak Beauty
Satellite

6 comments:

  1. Stewart, Nice catch and well done on the O.B.!- Trent took his in and I didn't even bother! I recorded a min. of -4.7 degrees last night. Surely even Captain Robert Falcon Scott wouldn't trap in those conditions!

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  2. -4! Oh dear, Matt you have it worse than us! Looks ok for a day or two now though...

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  3. Nice one Stewart. It was heading toward zero very early after dark here last night, and today has been superbly clear and bright from dawn as a result (with white car windows).

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  4. Glad you've got your trap up and running again. You had a good catch last night and well done on the oak beauty (lovely moth). It was -2.1 here in Warwickshire but I did manage 3 moths - an improvement on the last two weeks when I caught none! Caroline

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  5. Well done on the Oak Beauty Stewart,cracking moth !

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