Moths of Hertfordshire

[poschiavanus]

I was going to post about large numbers of Water Veneers coming to light last night, but as I found the answer to my question in the new "Moths of Hertfordshire" by Colin Plant, I thought I'd give a brief account of this book.

I subscribed to the initial offer because I thought it would have a wealth of useful information about micromoths and particularly leaf-miners.

It finally arrived last week and it a pretty formidable work: around 550 pages, A4 format, full colour AND printed in Britain. I've been reading up the accounts of moths I know and groups I'd like to know more about, so haven't read a lot of the introductory material on habitat, conservation etc., which is more specific to Hertfordshire. The book covers over 1500 species of Hertfordshire moths, with tetrad maps for over 90% of them, and weekly flight diagrams for most macros and a surprising large number of micros. Colour photos of moths are dotted throughout the text, usually one or two per page. In addition to the usual record information for most species there is useful commentary on recognition, confusion species and ecology.

So far I have found the weekly flight diagrams of most immediate value, in interpreting my own (non-Herts) garden records. The data sets for some species are substantial and in several cases suggest multiple generations where the standard texts describe a single protracted emergence. As I expected there is lots of info on leaf-miners but I haven't started to absorb it yet!

At £45 (it was nearly 50% cheaper with the subscription offer) this might be more than many folk outside of Herts might want to pay, but by most modern standards for a book of this quality it's a bargain.

The sheer volume of records collected by the Herts Moth Group since inception is impressive (30,000 records a year from around 70 recorders). Everyone concerned is to be congratulated on this achievement.

poschiavanus

PS. The account of the Water Veneer explains that there is extensive dispersion of males away from water, which is why I had over a hundred in a garden without a pond.

[aeshna5]

Received my copy through the post at the cheaper pre-publication price + it is an excellent book + will be of use to any keen mother.

[oxycera]

nice to be kept informed about books like this