Moths

[Wightman]

Hi everyone I haven't really introduced myself , I'm Gary 35 years old originally from London. I now live in the Isle of Wight. I'm interested to know how badly the weather is affecting everyone's moth trap catches, and how it compares to last year.

[John]

Hi Gary

Are you the Gary from the garden moths scheme forum. I am on it as well, although not that often. If you are then I actually answered your post last night when you said that you had seen more activity watching paint dry.

I ran my trap from 10pm last night and the first 90 minutes brought in most of what moths I caught (probably less than 50 in total). From then on hardly a moth was seen.

At the time (apart from about midnight on, it was dry and even after midnight the rain didn't last long.

It is looking serious I must say as my catches have been well down the last two weeks. I only trapped nine in 90 minutes Friday night and only trapped that long due to torrential rain.

Edit: I forgot to add that these results are well down on last year. I would have expected to have pulled in close to, if not more than, 200 moths in that time.

John

[Fourwings]

The results from my garden trap this year are certainly down a little on last year but it still seems to be doing reasonably well.
I ran it last night from 9:45 until 2:00am this morning, the minimum temp was 12 degrees and I ended up with a final tally of 107 moths of 32 different species, 5 of which were new additions to my garden list so all in all not too bad a night I felt.

[GuyF]

I've only started moth trapping this year so I can't say whether numbers are up or down. I trapped on Wednesday night and had a pretty good catch, maybe about 50 moths of 20 species including 3 new ones for me. However, a few weeks ago when there was another cold and wet spell I managed to catch the grand total of 4 moths on 2 attempts at trapping. Hopefully the weather will get better soon.
Guy

[Wightman]

John, I am on the garden moths scheme forum. Catches here have been poor all year apart from the odd decent night.

[JonSadler]

I have only just started trapping in my garden (since mid July) and I have not captured more than 23 moths in any one trapping session. I don't know how it compares as I have zero experience and no data for comparison. I am guessing that the low recovery relates to the weather since I started trapping - I live in Birmingham and it's been very wet indeed - and my tiny urban garden.

It's great fun though so I will stay with it.

Jon

[John]

I don't know what sort of trap you are using but there are a few moth-ers in Brum that manage to pull in some good numbers and some of those live in places like Sparkbrook for instance.

I wouldn't get downhearted. They will come if you perservere.

John

Originally Posted by JonSadler

I have only just started trapping in my garden (since mid July) and I have not captured more than 23 moths in any one trapping session. I don't know how it compares as I have zero experience and no data for comparison. I am guessing that the low recovery relates to the weather since I started trapping - I live in Birmingham and it's been very wet indeed - and my tiny urban garden.

It's great fun though so I will stay with it.

Jon

[JonSadler]

Hi John

I am in Selly Park next to Canon Hill Park (about 150m away) so there is a lot of green about. My garden is (errm) a work in progress after being hoofed by 4 young children for years. But there should be loads of moths around in the vicinity.

The trap is a Johnson Safari and the light is an 22V actinic circular ring. It might well be that....?

I am totally addicted so will not be giving up now...might make my own Skinner trap and stick a MV bulb to check whether it is the materials.

cheers
Jon

[John]

Hi Jon

I used to live in Quinton, Woodgate Valley and Bartley Green for years.

I run a home made trap with a 250 MV bulb in it and it does pull the moths in. The Actinic possibly pulls in fewer moths but they will probably be different to the MV bulbs so if you have them both running in different parts of the garden you could come up with an interesting selection of moths.

John

Originally Posted by JonSadler

Hi John

I am in Selly Park next to Canon Hill Park (about 150m away) so there is a lot of green about. My garden is (errm) a work in progress after being hoofed by 4 young children for years. But there should be loads of moths around in the vicinity.

The trap is a Johnson Safari and the light is an 22V actinic circular ring. It might well be that....?

I am totally addicted so will not be giving up now...might make my own Skinner trap and stick a MV bulb to check whether it is the materials.

cheers
Jon