The Boys Dun Good!!

Dunwich Forest - 1.3.19

Having looked at the weather forecast for this weekend earlier in the week, Friday looked good but Saturday looked better... We had already lined up a trapping session at Worlingham Woods; a new site for us and one with bags of potential.  But Friday did look too good to miss.  Back-to-back trapping?  Surely not...  We decided early on this week that we would still go to Dunwich forest on Friday 1st March but limit ourselves to torches and a single trap with a big session at Worlingham on the Saturday.  As the week progressed, the weather forecast chopped and changed repeatedly and it seemed like Saturday could be too windy for a full session.  Our solution?  Hedge our bets and go all out with all our traps at Dunwich Forest on the Friday and another session, weather-dependent on the Saturday.  Who needs sleep anyway?!

The target area at Dunwich was very exciting.  Large stands of both mature and young Birch mixed with Oak and Pine.  Although still early in the year, Yellow Horned moths have been seen in good locations across the country and this was our main target this time.  6 traps including were deployed in mixed habitat.  2 actinics under mature Birches,  MVs in clearings and 2 more actinics near stands of young Birch.  After our last outing with my eldest son, Nathan, we decided he could be put to good use again and allowed him the honour of pulling our latest piece of kit... the moth wagon!

Nathan and the Wagon

Soon after dusk we were rewarded with moths.  The first to arrive were Chestnuts with 4 or 5 arriving quite quickly.  Other early arrivals were a couple of Dotted Borders which fluttered around base and were netted expertly by Nathan even before Peter and myself had sat down!

Dotted Borders

Chestnut - A nicely marked female

It wasn't only moths that came to the traps; early in the evening we had 5 stunning Minataur Beetles drop in!

Male Minataur

A couple of micros were netted and tubed for later examination; Acleris ferrugana/notana and Agonopterix heracliana/ciliella.  It wasn't long before we decided to do our first round of trap-checking.  We didn't have long to wait for the moth we were hoping for... a Pristine Yellow Horned on the side of the trap!  I couldn't resist a little photo-shoot straight away.

The yellow 'horns' visible head-on 

Target Moth - The superb Yellow Horned

Flirting with the camera - The Yellow Horned shows its hind wings

Common Quakers started to arrive in force and one of the actinics under the mature birches caught 5 of them early on. The complete round of traps produced more Yellow Horned with a nice Satellite out in the clearing actinic and a few Pale Brindled Beauties.  

Common Quaker

Back at base, new moths were still arriving; a nice fresh Early Grey dropped onto the sheet and i found another Dotted Border on a Birch trunk. 

Early Grey

March Moth was added to the list and although a common moth in most areas, only the one was seen on this occasion and always worthy of a photo even though it wasn't as fresh as most of the moths were this evening.

March Moth

Around 8.30pm we started packing up the smaller traps to make things easier at the end.  No new species were added from the final round of traps but  numbers of Yellow Horned continued to increase and they overtook Chestnut and Common Quaker to become the most numerous moth of the night.  Back at base we added Small Quaker to the list; another lone specimen but it was a well marked individual.

Small Quaker

And finally.... with all but the tripod and sheet packed away, something different fluttered in and was duly netted by Nathan; a box-fresh Engrailed was a fabulous way to end a very productive evening at a very promising new location.

Engrailed

Totals for the night were as follows:

Chestnut 12
Dotted Border 3
Common Quaker 19
Acleris sp 4
Yellow Horned 25
Aonopterix agg 2
Small Quaker 1
Satellite 1
Pale Brindled Beauty 4
Early Grey 1
March Moth 1
Engrailed 1