Peter Jones, "Hampshire Diary"

• Saturday, May 30, 2009 - Painted Lady migration hits the brakes, and a rare Moth

Took part in the UK Painted Lady migration survey this morning.. Weather was perfect, but guess what?! Yep, not a single sign of any migration. Unbelievable given the previous days' numbers, in two hours we had 1 Painted Lady fly North, then presumably the same one head back south a few minutes later! A shame if all the data from the last week wasn't captured in any structured form, but maybe I was just unlucky, and they are still moving around further North. Ran the Moth Trap overnight, and although numbers were fairly small as is often the case, there were two new ones for me: a Small Fan Foot, and a fairly rare Moth.. A Barred Umber, picture below. The Barred Umber entered the trap at about 11pm, and after realising how rare it was, opened the trap to get a photo or better look.. I probably won't do that again late at night, as I was immediately blasted with tiny flies and insects! The Barred Umber was still quite active and I only succeeded in moving it to a better position for a photo. Next morning I was able to study it in a nature viewer before releasing.. He didn't hang around. Looking at Hampshire Moths, this species is widespread but quite rare with only 8-10 records a year typically.

Post A Comment! :: Send to a Friend!