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The coldest night's mothing in July..period! Last Thursday we decided to trap at a new site that we had acquired permission to trap at. Halsey field is a beautiful looking reserve full to the brim with wildflowers and dense scrub this site has huge potential and we shall be re-visiting it...on a warmer night! Once we got through the access gates we drove our cars to the edge of the lower field where we would setup 6 traps and see what we could turn up. The day had been quite warm at 23 degrees but upon arrival the sky was still clear and although cloud was visible in the distance, with the wind dropping it was never going to reach us. In short, we struggled. Moths were very slow to all lights and I also ended up smashing one Actinic tube whilst packing away. By 12am we had very little and the temperature was very cold where gloves and hats were probably needed so it was decided that we pack up all of the traps. The drama wasn't over. Some burk had parked in front of the access gate, so we had to squeeze our cars through a tiny gap with our wing mirrors pushed in...I probably also woke everyone up in the near vicinity as I bashed back a bramble bush to give us an extra two inches of clearance.

47 species were recorded in the 2 hours that we ran the lights for, which is pretty poor for peak moth season, in comparison a day later in my garden I managed a similar amount of species to just one trap in a built up location. So we can 99.9% put it down to the terribly cold weather conditions with a temperature that dipped to a cold 8 degrees.

We will be back Halsey Field!

Catch Report - 14/07/16 - Halsey Field - Hemel Hempstead - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap 1x 40w Actinic Suitcase Trap 1x 80w Actinic Briefcase Trap & 1x 40w Actinic/26w BLB Trap

Macro Moths - 35 Species

Barred Yellow 1 Bordered Sallow 5 Brimstone Moth 2 Brown-line Bright-eye 8 Brown-tail 1 Buff Arches 3 Clay 6 Clouded Border 2 Clouded Brindle 1 Common Footman 4 Dark Arches 4 Double Square-spot 3 Dwarf Cream Wave 1 Engrailed 1 Heart & Dart 2 July Highflyer 1 Large Yellow Underwing 4 Lesser Yellow Underwing 1 Light Arches 1 Light Emerald 1 Maple Prominent 1 Mottled Beauty 2 Mottled Rustic 2 Nut-tree Tussock 1 Peppered Moth 1 Poplar Grey 1 Riband Wave 4 Rustic 2 Scarce Footman 5 Shaded Broad-bar 10 Short-cloaked Moth 2 Shoulder-striped Wainscot 1 Smoky Wainscot 5 Sycamore 1 White Satin Moth 8

Micro Moths - 12 Species

Acentria ephemerella 6 Archips xylosteana 2 Coleophora sp 1 Crambus perlella 1 Eucosma campoliliana 3 Eucosma cana 5 Eudonia pallida 1 Hedya pruniana 1 Hedya nubiferana 1 Pandemis cerasana Phycitodes binaevella