Friday 8 November 2013

Llandaff North GMS 2013

With the Garden Moth Scheme having finished for the year (I'm not hardy enough to do the winter version) I thought I'd have a look at the moth numbers and compare them with other years. This is probably more meaningful than the usual end of year summary I do, as the trapping rate is fixed at once per week (from the start of March to the start of November). The downside is that it only includes 213 species (I've only included those which have been in the scheme from the start).

 Here are the results from my garden:

YearTotal mothsSpeciesMean min. temp (degC)
20078888310.99
20087688310.64
20097919010.41
20109539510.11
201111419610.71
2012886849.59
20131260929.78
 
So 2013 has been the best year in terms of numbers, but not in terms of species. Quite impressive considering very few moths were caught before June. The low average temperature is due mainly to the very cold spring.

A few species had by far their best ever year in the GMS, these being Common Marbled Carpet, Swallow-tailed, Bright-line Brown-eye, Flame Shoulder, Dot, Buff Ermine and Agriphila straminella.

2 comments:

  1. I've only ever had one Dot Moth in my garden trap!

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  2. Amazing, I thought they were common everywhere. I've had 42 in the garden this year, previous best was 18 last year.

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