Also at Merthyr Mawr

After Paul's dusking session Marc Botham and I ran 5 traps (3x MV & 2x 6W actinic) in an extended trapping session on the dunes. It rained most of the time but the temperature held up nicely. The strange thing was that when the rain stopped, at about midnight, the moths stopped coming too - up to that point there'd been a steady stream of new species.

We recorded around 59 species in total, plus a couple of larvae seen in the torchlight (including Scarlet Tiger). There were no major highlights, just a nice selection of early spring (still penty of Orthosia species) and late spring species, including Scorched Carpet, Square Spot, Peach Blossom, Scalloped Hazel, Pale Pinion (photo) and pretty much all the common prominents except Iron. Micros included Monopis weaverella, Elachista argentella and Capua vulgana.