RBO's First Mothing Session

A fine Friday evening was a good time to have the first ever Mothing session in my back garden. Bill's been encouraging me to do it for years and so, as everyone was available, we decided to spend a couple of hours seeing what we might collect.

Natasha from next door was at home so she and Tim & Janet Davie came along for a very informative and enjoyable couple of hours. We set up a trap at the bottom of the dip near the stream, one half way up the path near the ringing ride and a light and sheet on the back lawn.

The evening was cool so there wasn't a great deal of activity but enough for us novices. Soon I was acquainted with some common species such as Brimstone and Purple Clay as well as three species of Y Silver, Plain Golden and Beautiful Golden.

This Buff Arches was my favourite of the evening but there were also Ghost Moth, Map-winged Swift, Single-dotted Wave, Coxcomb Prominent and a host of others (for which I'm waiting a list of).

Buff Arches

The evening was enlivened by parties of Hedgehogs down the dip - at least five animals and some very odd noises. Pipistrelles continually quartered overhead and the calls of young Tawny Owls could be heard as we packed the equipment away.

Mrs Tiggiwinkle and young

Bill at one of the traps

Janet, Tim, Bill and Natasha

This morning I took a couple of the moths we'd kept overnight in the fridge and got a better look in the daylight before releasing them in the dense undergrowth that is my back garden! We'll certainly have to do this again and this time leave a trap on overnight.

Beautiful Golden Y

Plain Golden Y

All the feeders had been completely emptied over the past few days so a re-fill has quickly brought in the Bullfinches and Redpolls as well as a couple of Siskins that I heard overhead yesterday - they must have nested somewhere nearby,perhaps Dean Clough or another hillside plantation.

Hopefully the Dragonflies will be putting in an appearance soon. Just the regular Blue-tailed Damselflies so far.