Sunday 9th
Cold. At 2.5°C there wasn't going to be much flying but ten moths of nine species were present equally between the two traps. A lovely fresh male December Moth was the obvious highlight, a species that we can struggle to catch as overnight conditions are not brilliant during their flight period.
Saturday 8th
Back to normalcy after the previous days shenanigans. The Car Park trap bumped up to 13 moths of nine species where a Red-green Carpet and a Turnip were the highlights. Numbers were again higher behind the Ringing Room with 27 moths of 12 species though Rusty Dot Pearls had now fallen to 14.
Friday 7th
A very weird one. Overnight conditions were similar to the day before and so two traps were placed around the Obs. The main Car Park trap dropped to 11 moths of four species but the trap behind the Ringing Room managed to attract 78 moths of 12 species! It's very, very unusual for micro moths to outnumber the macro moths but there were only seven of the latter. There was a large fall of Rusty Dot Pearls as 45 were caught with more migrants including two Diamondbacks and a Rush Veneer.
Thursday 6th
It was a night of high hopes - the forecast included strong south-easterlies, Saharan dust, and overnight temperatures in excess of 14°C. All of which suggested a good night for moth'ing and the chance for more unusual species turning up. Sadly, none of this seemed to manifest itself in the car park trap where there were 26 moths of 14 species. Diamondbacks made a return after a few months with four present and two Cosmopterix pulchrimella added some colour.
Traps in the more sheltered Elms faired much better and amassed over 180 moths, though 150 of these were of November Moth-types. Meanwhile a walk along the Green Wall revealed leaf mines of Stigmella anomalella, Ectoedemia erythrogenella, and Stigmella trimaculella, the latter new for Sandwich Bay.
