Saturday 31 January 2015

Imperial Park... Winter Mothing

Moths sure were hard to come by in January. Due to a heavy work load only managed to get the trap on twice at home "Lighthouse Park" both times resulted in a empty trap. The work security lights "Imperial Park" produced

1 x December Moth
4 x Winter Moth
2 Angle Shades

Looks like more cold wet windy weather for start of February too..

Angle Shades

Thursday 29 January 2015

Invitation to be "archived" has been accepted

Many of you will know that the National Library of Wales (NLW) invited the MMBG Group to participate in the UK Web Archive by archiving the Group's web site and blog.  I am pleased to say that following consultation with contributors, this blog together with MMBG's web site, will be archived and the NLW's invitation has been accepted.

By way of background, the UK Web Archive is a partnership between the National Library of Wales, the British Library, JISC, and the Wellcome Library, to preserve website for future users. The NLW identified this blog as an important part of Wales’ documentary heritage and as such wanted it to remain available to researchers in the future.

Having now accepted the NLW's invitation, archived copy of our site will form part of the NLW's permanent collections and through the websites of both NLW (www.nlw.org.uk) and the UK Web Archive (www.webarchive.org.uk), thereby increasing awareness of our sites among researchers.

Thursday 22 January 2015

Monmouthshire Moth & Butterfly Group on TV

On Monday 26th January, members of MM&BG will be featuring on Iolo Williams Great Welsh Parks on BBC One Wales at 7.30pm. We were asked to run a moth trap at Pontypool Park back last May to try to catch some May Bugs. Hopefully they will also show some of the moths we caught.

Sunday 18 January 2015

Uskmouth power station

My first butterfly of the year - Small Tortoiseshell flying in the sunshine today at Uskmouth power station.


Thursday 1 January 2015

2014 review

We've been trapping moths on a weekly basis since 29th March 2014 in our garden at Abergavenny. We use a Skinner trap with an MV bulb.
Since starting we've identified 1173 moths comprising 130 different species. Our findings have been sent to the County Recorder who has also helped, from photographs, with the identification of some specimens we were having problems with.
The most common species caught during the year was Large Yellow Underwing (176 specimens), followed by Heart & Dart (148 specimens), followed by Dark Arches (104 specimens). The most prolific night was 24th July when we trapped 162 specimens. We caught only 7 specimens in November, and none in December. We record all our data on a spreadsheet and take a photograph of all new species.
Prior to March, we had no knowledge of moths and find we have learned a lot during the period but realise that as yet we have only just touched the surface of this interesting subject.

Lower Ochrwyth - one out and one in

Moths seen in the headlights coming home prompted a last session of 2014 and the outcome was just two moths - December Moth and Mottled Umber.

Happy New Year everybody.