John set the moth traps in the Magic Garden last night, this
is usually the best week in the best month for moths but overnight (and the early
morning) were surprisingly cold and the catch was relatively disappointing.
This was particularly true of micro moths with very low numbers so they must be
very sensitive to temperature. Nevertheless we caught just under 300 moths of
67 species. This included just one new addition to the parish list, this little
micro Thistle Conch…
It might have been worse as when I got into bed last night
my wife said “did you switch the traps on?” fortunately I ‘persuaded’ my son to
get up and walk over the fields to go and switch them on!
The catch did include some of my favourites like..
Burnished Brass
Gothic
And Garden Tiger…
I also saw my first hawker dragonfly of the year, a male Southern Hawker…
Your Migrant Hawker is in fact a Southern Hawker! Note the colour on the last 2 abdominal segments are bands rather than spots; also the greener thorax. Cant really see the ante-humeral spots on the thorax.
ReplyDeleteBy coincidence I saw my first Migrant Hawker today down my road for the year. Love the Thistle Conch photo!