Made our first trip of the year to Canvey Wick at Canvey Island last night. Equipped with 2 traps, 1 with a 160w Mercury Blanded Bulb + 22w Actinic Robinson style trap, the other with a 150w Halogen bulb and dual 40w Actinic Skinner trap. We opted to leave the 125w Robinsion's at home as we would no be able to carry them with the heavy chokes that you need to run them. Walking along the path towards our trapping spot, there was lots of evidence of moth activity, so we did a quick recce and positioned our traps on the large circular tarmac areas which were left when the massive Oil drums where removed some years back now. Moth activity at the lights was slow, but did pick up as full darkness approached, we were very concerned at how clear it was as the daytime temperature had reached 21c, at nearly 10pm it had fallen to 14c, throughout the next few hours the temperature did fluctuate as we got a few fine wisps of cloud over our heads. First moths to arrive were a few micro's which were quickly potted up and then lots of Common Swifts arrived. There seemed to be periods where there were lots of moths flying in and then it would go completely quiet. Nevertheless we managed some good species including 8 Cream-spot Tiger's, 1 Fox Moth, 12+ Light Brocade and a single Sloe Pug, all being new for me and that is pretty good going considering i've been regularly trapping for over 4 years now. Graham had one new species to a trap, a Puss Moth, which came in right at the last minute of packing up.
Here is the list of Moths recorded on the night and amounts
Macro Moths - (45 species)
6x Common Swift 1x Fox Moth [NEW] - Female 4x Pebble Hook-tip 1x Figure of Eighty 2x Mullein Wave 1x Cream Wave 2x Common Carpet 1x Waved Umber 1x Mottled Pug 3x Common Pug 1x Freyer's Pug 1x Sloe Pug [NEW] 1x Clouded Border 2x Peacock Moth 4x Sharp-angled Peacock 1x Peppered Moth 1x Willow Beauty 2x Pale Oak Beauty 7x Common White Wave 2x Common Wave 2x Clouded Silver 8x Light Emerald 1x Poplar Hawk-moth 1x Elephant Hawk-moth 1x Puss Moth 2x Pebble Prominent 4x Pale Prominent 2x Iron Prominent 8x Cream-spot Tiger Moth [NEW] 1x White Ermine 5x Heart & Dart 3x Shuttle-shaped Dart 4x Flame Shoulder 1x Ingrailed Clay 7x Setaceous Hebrew Character 12x Light Brocade [NEW] 1x Bright-line Brown-eye 2x Clay 1x Shoulder-striped Wainscot 1x Grey Dagger 3x Rustic Shoulder-knot 10x Marbled Minor 10x Mottled Rustic 8x Cream-bordered Green Pea 1x Straw Dot 1x Snout
Micro Moths - (19 species)
1x Argyresthia curvella 1x Coleophora sp. 3x Cochylis hybridella 2x Cochylis nana 1x Cochylis sp. to id 1x Cyclamen Tortrix Clepsis spectrana 1x Cydia nigricana 1x Dichrorampha alpinana 6x Epiblema trimaculana 1x Gypsonoma sociana [NEW] 3x Hedya pruniana 1x Phycitodes maritima 3x Dark Fruit-tree Tortrix Pandemis heparana 1x Syndemis musculana 1x Bramble Shoot Moth Epiblema uddmanniana 1x Epinotia biluna 2x Epiblema cynosbatella 2x Chrysoteuchia culmella 2x Cnephasia sp.
