It is time to set up the moth trap again. This involves driving round Flanders the night before and filling up the genny with petrol and then setting the light running in the dusk. It was a perfect evening but this makes it perfect for midges as well. By the time I had finished I was coated in midges and had given enough blood to run a hospital. At least I knew it was working as when I drove back home I could see the bright light shining across the Moss.
So the next morning I met the local moth expert John Knowler on the edge of the Moss and we headed down to empty the trap and see what we had.
And it was great the trap was full and there were loads of moths of the vegetation around the trap. The downside was that there were loads of midges as well, the is often a puff of them when you first open up the trap. For the next 1.5 hours we systematically worked our way through the moths counting, commenting, putting a name and just admiring them. Some of the gems included several beautiful grey light knot grass, a huge female northern eggar, several delicate grass waves and for me most beautiful of all 4 silvery arches. These moths had only been recorded a few times in the area before and never more than one per trap and we caught 4, all freshly hatched. These moths have a silvery sheen that has hints of pink and green that make then look something like a delicate sweet wrapper. I was thankful to have John along as when we were searching through the trap twice we came across small dull looking moths that tried to flitter away. I would have let them go but John quickly caught them in pots. After a lot of umming and arhing he identified them as a shaded pug and a round-winged muslin moth. Well it turns out that shaded pug has only been caught 3 times before in this area (lowland area of central Scotland), the last time being in 1987. The round-winged muslin hasn't been caught in this area since 1977. So both of them very special species even if they don't look at smart.
The names of some of the moths we caught are fantastic beautiful brocade, clouded bordered brindle, common lutestring, scorched wing, true lovers knot and the coxcomb prominant.
There is plenty of the season left for more trapping and this year is proving to be a cracker.
