Review of the Lepidoptera of Essex for the year 2000
BRIAN GOODEY
298 Ipswich Road, Colchester, Essex C04 4ET
Introduction
The saddest recent event was the loss of Maitland Emmet on 3 March 2001. He, more than anyone
else, put the recording of Lepidoptera in Essex on a firm footing. He added scores of species to the
county list, gave us the best coverage of leaf-miners for any county, and has done much to encourage
the rest of us to record patiently and properly Just before he died, Maitland handed his
microlepidoptera card file system to me together with all past correspondence, a valuable resource
which contains records made by him and his colleagues over the last 20 years. He will be greatly
missed.
The year 2000 proved to be a productive one for the recording of Lepidoptera. Over 6,000 records
were received, 139 sites returned data, and 852 species were noted. National Moth Night held on 23
September yielded 531 records from 31 sites with 57 people taking part. An astonishing 115 species
were recorded, a total bettered only by the Channel Islands.
The launch of The Moths of Essex was announced, next in David Corke's Lopinga series of Essex
guides. Both smaller and larger moths will be covered, with abundant photographs and distribution
maps. Recording in Essex is still rather biased towards the north-east, as the first map of post-1990
records shows.
The smallest symbol shows 0 to 50 species, the largest 500
plus species. This reflects the distribution of recorders and
where they live. It is hoped that some infilling can be done
to redress the balance. During the data gathering phase of
The smaller moth of Essex (Emmet 1981), Maitland visited
every ten kilometre square on several occasions for this very
purpose, and it is hoped that enough expertise exists among
the county's eighty-odd recorders for at least some species
to be fully covered.
To throw the gauntlet down, the next map shows post-
1990 records of Stigmella aurella, an ubiquitous species
whose mines form silvery trails in the leaves of bramble
Rubus fruticosus. So easy is this species to record,
especially in the winter months when there is a lack of
competing vegetation, that you can easily spot the mines
on Rubus by the roadside - often without leaving your
car! I would urge recorders to send me any examples of
mines found during their travels.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 18 (2001)
9?