File:Scales Park Map Ben's Traps (33928956164).jpg

Field Trip - Scales Park - 16/05/17 + New for County record!

On Tuesday night I joined several fellow moth'ers to a very large Wood in the North-east corner of Hertfordshire for some moth trapping. We had been granted permission to be there because this is quite a highly guarded site with reasonable tight security as it has a shooting ground in the vicinity and use to be a main RAF/USAF base in WW2, in fact looking on a map from 1944, my traps were positioned right over where the bomb dump use to be!

The weather was warm and sunny and up to 24 degrees in the afternoon but extremely windy which made netting nearly impossible! But by the evening the wind had dropped but the rain started as soon as we turned up and with less wind, it wasn't going to be blown through anytime soon.

We got soaked and the equipment suffered as well with no less than 5 blown bulbs, luckily my gear just about survived although I had to throw a load of egg trays out as they were completely sodden and ripped.

Firstly though, I managed to do some day-time netting before the night trapping effort and was rewarded with some great moths, including a new one for me, Pammene rhediella (unfortunately it was quite worn).

Adela croesella also turned up, and is the County 3rd record after both 1st and 2nd County records were found in 2011 by myself and Andrew Wood on the same night! A joint County first record doesn't happen very often. In fact...was this to be a sign? Spookily Andrew and I may have caught the same moth again on the same night and a County first once again. Mine has been confirmed as of last night as the first South-east record of Pammene ignorata and the 12th County that it has been recorded in.

Some great moths were found and a few are still pending identification including two possible Epinotia tetraquetrana which would also be a new moth for me, but having never seen it before I thought I would get it checked. I'm not pretty confident that it is Epinotia tetraquetrana.

Day-time 16/05/17 - Scales Park - North-east Herts

1x Adela croesella 2x Adela fibulella 15+ Anthophila fabriciana 15+ Cauchas rufimitrella 5x Celypha lacunana 1x Common Pug 1x Crambus lathoniellus 2x Dichrorampha sp (to be gen det by Graeme Smith) 1x Dichrorampha plumbana 1x Epiblema scutulana sp (to be gen det by Graeme Smith) 2x Epinotia subocellana 1x Epinotia tedella 100+ Glyphipterix simpliciella 100+ Micropterix calthella 1x Monopis weaverella 1x Nemapogon schwarziellus 1x Notocelia cynosbatella 1x Orange Footman 1x Pammene rhediella [NEW!] 3x Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 1x Pyrausta aurata 1x Red Twin-spot Carpet 1x Rivulet 1x Silver-ground Carpet 1x Silver-Y 1x Syndemis musculana 3x Psyche casta (Case)

Catch Report - 16/05/17 - Scales Park - North-east Herts - 2x 125w MV Robinson Trap 1x 160w MBT Robinson Trap 1x Synergetic Skinner Trap & 1x 40w Actinic Trap

70 species

Macro Moths

1x Angle Shades 1x Barred Hook-tip 2x Brimstone Moth 1x Brindled Pug 1x Broken-barred Carpet 2x Chinese Character 2x Clouded Border 2x Common Carpet 2x Common Pug 1x Common Swift 1x Common White Wave 15x Cream Wave 4x Flame Shoulder 2x Grey pine Carpet 2x Hebrew Character 1x Iron Prominent 5x Latticed Heath 1x Least black Arches 1x Light Emerald 2x Maiden's Blush 1x Maple Prominent 15x Mottled Pug 2x Nut-tree Tussock 5x Oak-tree Pug 60x Orange Footman 1x Pale Oak Beauty 2x Pale Prominent 10x Pale Tussock 5x Pebble Hook-tip 1x Pebble Prominent 1x Peppered Moth 3x Poplar Hawk-moth 5x Poplar Lutestring 5x Red Twin-spot Carpet 1x Rustic Shoulder-knot 1x Sandy Carpet 8x Scalloped Hazel 1x Scalloped Hook-tip 2x Scorched Carpet 4x Seraphim 1x Setaceous Hebrew Character 2x Silver-ground Carpet 5x Small Phoenix 1x Spectacle 1x Streamer 3x V-Pug 1x Waved umber 3x White Ermine 1x Yellow-barred Brindle

Micro Moths

1x Agapeta hamana 1x Agonopterix arenella 1x Argyrotaenia ljungiana 5x Bucculatrix nigricomella 1x Caloptilia robustella/alchimiella 1x Crambus lathoniellus 1x Cryptoblabes bistriga 10+ Glyphipterix simpliciella 20+ Epinotia subocellana 5x Epinotia tedella 2x Epinotia tetraquetrana [NEW!] (to be gen det by Graeme Smith) 1x Endrosis sarcitrella 2x Eulia ministrana 1x Monopis weaverella 1x Notocelia cynosbatella 1x Pammene Ignorata [NEW!] (Gen det by Graeme Smith) 2x Pseudargyrotoza conwagana 1x Strophedra sp (to be gen det by Graeme Smith) 1x Swammerdamia caesiella?? (to be gen det by Graeme Smith) 3x Syndemis musculana