Port Eynon caterpillar

The caterpillar we collected on 1st Jan has grown substantially and is 26mm long after moulting a few times. It's clear now that it is a Square-spot Rustic, so our tentative Mythimna id was clearly wrong and a reminder that attempts at identifying young larvae are likely to have a high degree error.

Rhoose Top 10 2011 & 2012

Here's my data for 2011 & 2012.  The most notable points I guess is the appearance of Silver Y at no 2 for 2012, and the fact that overall numbers of the commonest species appears not to have altered dramatically despite the poor conditions in 2012, except for H&D.  Curiously the total number of species trapped was also greater in 2012.  That could be explained by my identification skills becoming better (slowly!) though.  I also wonder if I may have been misrecording Uncertain/Rustics as Vine's Rustics in 2011?

	2012
Heart and Dart	361
Silver Y	173
Light Brown Apple Moth	135
Large Yellow Underwing	116
Garden Grass-veneer	83
Common Rustic agg.	73
Uncertain/Rustic agg.	68
Dark Arches	56
Hebrew Character	55
	2011
Heart and Dart	1345
Large Yellow Underwing	116
Dark Arches	98
Light Brown Apple Moth	85
Setaceous Hebrew Character	67
Vine's Rustic	66
Garden Grass-veneer	65
Marbled Minor agg.	57
Shuttle-shaped Dart	54

Llandaff North Top10

I had these stats to hand so it didn't take long to put together something similar. I've ranked them as far as 20 in each previous year.















It's actually a Top 12 as there was a three-way tie for 10th this year. Similar to Dave, the top 3 are quite consistent although the placings change, but beyond that it varies a lot year to year. The Llandaff North and Llanishen lists are quite similar, except I have a few geometrids (Willow Beauty, Riband Wave & Brimstone) in place of Dave's noctuids (Flame Shoulder, Dot & Dark Arches).

more Llanishen Stats

Following the other stats posted last week, I thought I'd take a quick look at my garden top 10 and see how it's changed over the past couple of years. I've only done from 2010 onwards so far (may go back further in due course). From this though, apart from the top two, there is very little consistency in my trap!

			2012	2011	2010
1	2089	Heart and Dart	594	1 (1238)	1 (842)
2	2107	Large Yellow Underwing	208	2 (357)	2 (131)
3	998	Light Brown Apple Moth	185	-	4 (61)
4	2109	Lesser Yellow Underwing	91	5 (90)	-
5	2102	Flame Shoulder	90	8 (70)	3 (123)
6	2321	Dark Arches	90	4 (148)	10 (43)
7	2155	Dot Moth	80	6 (79)	10 (43)
8	1764	Common Marbled Carpet	69	-	9 (45)
9	1293	Garden Grass-veneer (Chrysoteuchia culmella)	65	3 (167)	-
10	2111	Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing	64	-	-

Winter GMS

Last night in Cwmbach. No moths, of course, but wouldn't it have been amazing if there had been one in there.

Llanishen 2012

Following George's stats I've taken a look at mine:

Year	Species	New species	Trap nights	Total moths	Moths per night
2005	215	215	29	3365	116.0
2006	308	145	66	4600	69.7
2007	243	49	122	5739	47.0
2008	206	27	90	2766	30.7
2009	208	16	72	1821	25.3
2010	255	35	87	2816	32.4
2011	319	40	99	4697	47.4
2012	276	25	113	3672	32.5

As with George's data mine hides a switch from Skinner to Robinson, but mine was in 2012. This may have bolstered the figures slightly. The other thing that makes a direct comparison slightly tricky is that I trap more often during the winter now than I did back in the first few years, so the moths per night is bound to drop. So all this dataset really tells me is that the Robinson trap has made a difference!

Hardy Moth

Despite it being only 1.20 C, currently, an Early Moth has just appeared at the kitchen window. That has brightened up my evening, somewhat.