The Season under way

Moths have begun to arrive in some numbers with the sudden and very welcome turn in the weather. A lovely warm afternoon yesterday was as good as Summer and the night before was the first without frost for a couple of weeks.

I walked past the light trap in the early evening after dark on a mission to cut some chives and it was already clear that the number of guests would be well up. In the morning there were happy families of March Moths, Common Quakers and Hebrew Characters plus the couple of early season stars shown below: a Nut-tree Tussock and an Oak Beauty, the latter with a Hebrew Character alongside. 

I lack the patience to count exactly how many there were of the three multiple arrivals, something which seriously reduces my value to science, but I would estimate that all of them numbered a dozen or more.  I didn't spend very long looking at the trap with the bulb lit because the light is so bright; but the flapping and jinking of new arrivals, some of them apparently struggling to escape once down the funnel, added to my conviction that light does not 'attract' moths in any benign way, but throws their nocturnal guidance systems into confusion. I have been reassured by experts that this process is unlikely to damage them and indeed they are all quiescent in the morning; but part of me still wonders.

The March moths, like some other species later in the year, are good at keeping out of the trap and content to perch on the bulbholder or transparent cowl. This might be thought to allay my worries about the effect of light but I think that cosiness may be playing a part. It is lovely and warm near the lighted bulb.

 

I am now up to ten species this year which is pretty standard for mid-March: the latest arrivals included the Chestnut, Small Quaker and Engrailed, above, and the Twin-spotted Quaker below, a very handsome member of a largely demure tribe.  I am making a great effort to send all my species to iRecord so that at least the UK moth database knows what's here, even if I let them down on the precise numbers involved. Mea culpa!