Black Mountains Micros

Monmouthshire's northernmost hectads - SO22 and SO23 - are woefully under-recorded for Micros.  SO22 had 49 recorded species and SO23 had just 4 (although only a small part of the hectad is in VC35).  After a day's work in Radnorshire I returned home via the Llanthony Valley, and stopped at three places to beat the hedges for Micros.  The first, near Capel-y-ffin, produced 13 species of Micro, all new for SO23 but all mundane.  The second, north of Llanthony, also held 14, with 12 new for SO22 and 4 Caryocolum blandella (new for Monmouthshire) disturbed from the hedge bank.  The third, in forestry south of Llanthony, produced 22 species including 8 additions for SO22; the distinctive orange Zelleria hepariella was pick of the bunch there.

There are still a lot of under-recorded hectads, especially towards the edges of the Vice-county, and diurnal micro recording can add a lot to these totals even if trapping is impractical.  Micro totals in two formats follow:

SO10	93		ST18	16
SO11	29		ST19	158
SO20	101		ST27	55
SO21	151		ST28	241
SO22	49		ST29	166
SO23	4		ST38	188
SO30	304		ST39	174
SO31	89		ST48	310
SO32	61		ST49	175
SO40	528		ST58	30
SO41	291		ST59	356
SO42	39
SO50	398
SO51	275

	3		4
	2		49	61	39
	1	29	151	89	291	275
SO	0	93	101	304	528	398
ST	9	158	166	174	175	356
	8	16	241	188	310	30
	7		55
		1	2	3	4	5