Hemel Hempstead Field Trip - 07/05/13

On the night of the 7th Roger, David and myself ran 1 trap near Hay Wood, 2 traps next to Green Croft and left 2 running at Gadesprings, hoping to cover as much of the Boxmoor's Trust land as we could on one night without doing ourselves an injury! Their was a minor hiccup at about 9pm when I realised that I had not turned the lights on at Gadesprings (as we left before dark at 8.30pm), so a quick race down to flick the switch and it was back upto Green Croft to resume business. The weather was pretty much perfect with a steady temperature of 16c as the light faded, unfortunately the cloud did not materialise and a breeze picked up which didn't help things. The moths were quite few and far between especially for this time of year, although most expected species turned up (minus Water Carpet and Powdered Quaker, both of which we trapped on the 24th of April) Lunar Marbled Brown and Common Quaker were by far the commonest with 12 and 15 of each respectively. Highlight for myself was a melanic Nut-tree Tussock, I have never seen such a dark example and was reminiscent of the Tawny Marbled Minor's you get mid-summer, both Roger and David said that they get a fair few like this, but this being my first out of countless Nut-tree Tussocks over the years. The most interesting micro was a single example of Cochylis atricapitana, initially I thought it was hybridella but I must have had a brain-lacking moment as this moth isn't on the wing until July (typically).

On the beetle front the Carabid Agonum dorsale was new for me and a Weevil that is yet to be identified was found walking around one of the traps.

Out of all the traps, the 125w MV Robinson at Green Croft did the best.

The full list is below, it is interesting to note that each location had some different species.

Green Croft - Hemel Hempstead - 9pm til 12pm

Macro moths

1x Chestnut 1x Waved Umber 1x Shuttle-shaped Dart 5x Nut-tree Tussock 3x Red-green Carpet 1x Yellow-barred Brindle 1x Small Quaker 12x Lunar Marbled Brown 15x Common Quaker 4x Early Thorn 2x Clouded Drab 1x Satellite 4x Hebrew Character 8x Brindled Pug

Micro moths

2x Eriocrania subpurpurella 1x Agonopterix arenella

Hay Wood - Hemel Hempstead - 9pm til 12pm

Macro Moths

1x Pebble Prominent 1x Common Quaker

Micro Moths

2x Agonopterix arenella

Gadesprings - Hemel Hempstead - 9pm til 12.30pm

Macro Moths

1x Clouded Drab 1x Red Twin-spot Carpet 1x Hebrew Character 1x Early Thorn 2x Early Grey 1x Pale Prominent 4x Common Quaker 1x Chestnut

Micro moths

1x Eriocrania subpurpurella