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Field Trip - Roughdown Common - 13/06/17

I had an eventful trip to Roughdown Common whereby we planned to run as many traps as possible, conditions were absolutely perfect, warm and humid with some cloud cover. We started the evening setting the first trap up in the field where there were three Cattle, Belted Galloways to be precise. They greeted us and then seemed to leave us alone for a bit after cleaning the cars with their tongues and having a good old itch on Steve's rear bumper. We left the field to set up a few more traps and then returned back to the car for more equipment, to our agony the trap had been thoroughly inspected by the cattle and there was slobber all over the trap and they did a mighty fine job of smashing the bulb but it could have been A LOT worse as the fragile plastic collar (the second most important part of the trap after the bulb) was still intact! How on earth it escaped being trodden on I do not know. Luckily Ian said he would nip back home and grab his spare bulb and we moved the trap through the gate and shut the gate....but they had done their 'investigating' and moved off for the rest of the night down the bottom of the field.

After setting all the traps were set up, the battery operated one was low on juice..another minor set-back as we would only get possibly 2 hours life out of the tracer lithium ion battery.

Things come in three's and of course nothing could be worse than a generator stopping, yep that's what happened...trying to get it started again flooded the spark plug and luckily I could use the spare that I had brought with me.

Onto the moths and boy were we in for a night! The species just kept coming and coming and at one stage I couldn't keep typing the list.

There are a few to check but best species so far were singles of Obscure Wainscot, Anania perlucidalis, Anarsia innoxiella and two good plume species (one to be checked) Merrifieldia leucodactyla/baliodactylus and Gillmeria pallidactyla.

Thanks to Roger, Steve and Ian for helping out until the small hours, another successful trip with at least 160 species seen!

Catch Report - 13/06/17 - Roughdown Common - West Herts - 7 traps in total - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap 1x 40w Actinic + 15w LED Trap 1x 80w Actinic Trap 2x 20w Wemlite Actinic Trap 1x 15w Actinic Portable Heath Trap

85 Macros & 75 Micros

160 species

Numbers approximate

Macro Moths

Alder Moth 2 Beautiful Hook-tip 6 Blue bordered Carpet 1 Brimstone 4 Broken-barred Carpet 2 Brown Rustic 5 Brown Scallop 2 Buff Ermine 1 Buff-tip 1 Cinnabar 1 Clay 1 Clouded Border 4 Clouded Brindle 1 Clouded Silver 8 Common Carpet 2 Common Marbled Carpet 4 Common Pug 1 Common Swift 3 Common White Wave 2 Coronet 12 Dark Arches 4 Double Square-spot 2 Double-striped Pug 1 Elephant Hawk-moth 2 Fern 3 Figure of Eighty 2 Flame 3 Flame Shoulder 2 Freyer's Pug 1 Garden Carpet 1 Ghost Moth 1 Green Carpet 5 Green Pug 5 Green Silver-lines 1 Grey Pug 5 Haworth's Pug 1 Heart & Club 1 Heart & Dart 10+ Ingrailed Clay 10 July Highflyer 1 Knot Grass 1 Large Nutmeg 4 Large Yellow Underwing 2 Lesser Yellow Underwing 1 Light Arches 1 Light Emerald 5 Lime-speck Pug 2 Maiden's Blush 1 Maple Prominent 2 Marbled White-spot 3 Middle-barred Minor 3 Miller 1 Mottled Beauty 5 Mottled Pug 1 Mottled Rustic 5 Obscure Wainscot 1 Orange Footman 1 Pale Prominent 1 Peppered Moth 2 Poplar Grey 1 Privet Hawk-moth 1 Purple Bar 2 Riband Wave 2 Rustic Shoulder-knot 2 Scorched Wing 2 Setaceous Hebrew Character 2 Shoulder-striped Wainscot 1 Shuttle-shaped Dart 2 Silver-ground Carpet 2 Small Angle Shades 1 Small Dusty Wave 1 Small Elephant Hawk-moth 1 Small Fan-foot 2 small Square-spot 1 Small Yellow Wave 1 Snout 2 Straw Dot 10 Swallow Prominent 1 Sycamore 2 Tawny Marbled Minor 2 Treble Lines 3 Turnip Moth 1 Uncertain 3 White Pinion-spotted 1 Wormwood Pug 1

Micro Moths

Agapeta hamana 4 Agapeta zoegana 10 Agonopterix arenella 2 Agonopterix purpurea 1 Aleimma loeflingiana 10 Anania hortulata 3 Anania perlucidalis 1 Anarsia innoxiella 1 Anthophila fabriciana 1 Aphomia sociella 1 Archips podana 2 Archips xylosteana 3 Argyresthia conjugella 2 Argyresthia curvella 2 Blastobasis lacticolella 3 Blastodacna hellerella 1 Bryotropha terrella 5 Caloptilia populetorum 1 Caloptilia robustella alchimiella 2 Caloptilia syringella 1 Celypha lacunana 15 Celypha striana 5 Chrysoteuchia culmella 5 Clepsis consimilana 5 Cnephasia sp 10 Cochylimorpha straminea 5 Cochylis dubitana 2 Cochylis molliculana 1 Crambus lathoniellus 5 Cydia fagiglandana 2 Dichrorampha sp 4 Ditula angustiorana 2 Emmetia marginea 1 Endothenia gentianaeana marginea 2 Epinotia bilunana 2 Epiphyas postvittana 1 Eucosma cana 10 Eudonia lacustrata 5 Eudonia pallida 3 Eulamprotes unicolorella 5 Eupoecilia angustana 15 Gillmeria pallidactyla 1 Grapholita funebrana 1 Gypsonoma sociana 1 Hedya nubiferana 5 Hedya pruniana 5 Homoeosoma sinuella 2 Merrifieldia leucodactyla or baliodactylus 1 Metzneria metzneriella 10+ Mompha ochraceella 1 Mompha subbistrigella 3 Nemophora degeerella 1 Nephopterix angustana 2 Notocelia trimaculana 15+ Notocelia uddmanniana 2 Pammene albuginana 1 Pandemis cerasana 10+ Pandemis cinnamomeana 1 Pandemis heparana 5 Paraswammerdamia albicapitella 1 Parornix sp 1 Phycita roborella 1 Prays fraxinella 2 Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 10+ Pseudoswammerdamia combinella 1 Scoparia ambigualis 5 Scoparia pyralella 10+ Scythropia crataegella 1 Stigmella sp 1 Strophedra weirana 1 Teleiodes luculella 5 Thiotricha subocellea 3 Tinea semifulvella 1 Tortrix viridana 10+