Chris and I spent an interesting couple of hours searching flowers at Newton Burrows last night, recording around 35 moth species on Buddleia, Ragwort, Hemp Agrimony and Traveller's Joy.
We were hoping for (but not expecting!) Portland Moth, with the last county record coming from the Candleston area of the Merthyr Mawr dune system on 15th August 2002. Needless to say we failed on this front, but did record a few nice species, including White-line Dart, Archer's Dart, Small Waved Umber and around 15 Poplar Hawk larvae on a small group of young poplar trees.
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| Archer's Dart |
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| Poplar Hawk larva |
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| White-line Dart |
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| Common Blues roosting |
I remember that evening very well, with Bernard Skinner and his paraffin tilley lamp, on his round Britain quest looking for Coast Dart. Which he didn't find in VC41. However a very nice Portland Moth did fly into our trap, although Steve Moon & myself had seen them at KNNR in the 90s. However the star find that night was Acleris permutana, only the 4th for Glamorgan, which was found on burnet rose. Of the 5 moth-ers that night, poor Stefan has passed away and with Steve & Bernard who are unfortunately not very well. Still it was a great experience and a privilege to go mothing with a group like that.
ReplyDeleteWish I could have been there...that was about a month before I moved to Glamorgan.
ReplyDeleteI'd still like to do some searches for Portland Moth at Kenfig. Trapping on the reserve centre roof probably isn't the best location for catching a moth that is supposed to fly in short hops along the ground! Having said that, they have obviously made it up onto the roof in the past...
What you need to do is ask Dave the warden if he can ferry you [with traps etc] out along the haul road, to trap there in between the foredunes & dunes/slacks. For KNNR that would probably be your best bet. Otherwise it's Candleston and carry your gear out onto the dunes from the carpark. We had a lot of moths nectaring on ragwort & bramble at Merthyr Mawr that evening.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jake, I'm not going to have chance to do anything more this year, but will pencil that in for 2014.
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