A Date for Your Diary

Saturday 2nd July 2016

Daytime Moths at Llawrcwrt.

Target species: Forester, Burnet Companion, Burnet Moths and any micros we may find.

We will be opening traps from the night before around 10am, followed by a search for day-fliers around the reserve after lunch.  Please bring suitable clothing including 'wellies' and a packed lunch/refreshments.
If the forecast is for cold or wet conditions on the Saturday we may delay the event until Sunday, please keep an eye on the Events page for changes to this and other events to be arranged.

Ina and Tony

Ynys-hir 19th Feb 2016

Eight species of macro moth last night and two micros.

Sarah has just beaten us to Oak Beauty but we also had Pale Brindled Beauty, Satellite, Chestnut, Common Quaker, Brindled Pug, our first Hebrew Character and Early Grey.
Little ones were the usual Tortricodes alternella and Ypsolopha ustella.  Ina and Tony

Ypsolopha ustella

Oak Beauty

Hebrew Character

Early Grey

Early Moth

Our kitchen window light yesterday evening attracted this Early Moth, our first for this year.

Carolyn & Evan.

Grey shoulder-knot records

Following Sarah's post below I looked at the recent county records for Grey shoulder-knot to compare spring and autumn records. The chart below shows those records from 2001 to 2015.

In 1984 Adrian Fowles stated that this moth was "Formerly not uncommon in Ceredigion's oakwoods, this species has undoubtedly declined and just eight specimen have been recorded in the last thirty years". It seems to have had a bit of a recovery since 2000 with a peak in 2010. I wonder if the difference between spring and autumn numbers in a year, are affected by the summer weather, eg. 2006 which was a good summer. Do the difference between autumn numbers and spring the following year, reflect on the winter weather?
Tony

2015 Moth Report

The vc46 2015 Moth Report is available by clicking HERE  Opens as a PDF

If anyone  is struggling with Dropbox and would like a copy emailed to them direct please let us know.

There are some dates for your diary on the last page which will eventually appear on the blog events page.

Ina and Tony

Common quaker

Pete Skinner reported this Common quaker from his trap last night. There have been several unusually early records of this moth from around the country, and this is the earliest record for VC46 by 6 days. He also caught several Chestnut moths.

Correction: As Evan has pointed out ( see comments) this is actually only the fourth earliest county record for Common quaker. The earliest records are: 03/01/2013, 09/01/2016, 30/01/1989.

Tony

Eglwysfach last night

A couple of pugs last night and another Mottled Grey.
Apart from that only the usual suspects, Pale Brindled Beauty, Dotted Border, Chestnut, Mottled Umber and lots of Tortricodes alternella.

Double-striped Pug

Brindled Pug

Mottled Grey

Pale Brindled Beauty f.monacharia

National Moth Recorders Meeting 2016

Tony and I had another interesting day at the National Moth Recorders Meeting in Birmingham on Saturday.
Some very interesting speakers and presentations that I am not going to go into now as these may well be available on YouTube before very long, watch this space.

If you would like to see if there is anything that interests you the agenda for the day can be viewed in the new copy of Emoth by clicking here 

New! National Micro-moth Recording Scheme

Probably the single biggest and arguably most important announcement is that from 1st April, the National Moth Recording Scheme will start to accept micro-moth records for the first time! Micro-moth records, however, will go through a more thorough verification process than macro-moths.

Every species and commonly-recorded stage has been allocated a grade similar to the grades on some moth group websites. All records within reason will be verified according to these criteria - by the way, these national grades and recording criteria have been designed by many acknowledged taxa experts, people with a vast amount of experience and know what they are talking about. However, there will be instances where local grades and rulesets may overrule the national guidelines. I will ensure these guidelines are made available in due course along with any other relevant details for the recording and verification of micro-moths.

There are now three possible levels of verification: 

Firstly, the County Recorder (CMR); if, for any reason, I feel I am unable to verify a species' record, I will now have at my disposal a Regional Verification Panel (RVP) of experts in order to help me make an informed decision. 

If, for any reason, the RVP are unable to verify that record, it will be referred to a National Verification Panel of experts for a final decision. 

The NVP will also have access to the full dataset in the National Moth Recording Scheme for final verification checks as they see fit. 

In all instances, the CMRs, or Verification Panel’s decision will be final. There will be feedback throughout the verification process.

The data we provide to the national schemes must be robust as our data are used to make informed policy and conservation decisions.