Well we have been at it again. In our attempts to track down the rare moths of Flanders the resident moth expert Prof John Knowler and I ran a moth trap out on the Moss last Thurs night. There are a small number of rare and declining moths that haven't been recorded on the Moss that should be out there and their flight periods are all around the July August period. So this means a late evening trek out to the Moss to set a trap running through the night and an early morning trek back to see what has been caught. The evening chosen was fine though maybe a little cold (about 12 C ) so we weren't sure what was going to be there in the morning, moths liking warm, muggy and dampish nights best.
In the morning 223 moths processed, identified, photographed and released later we knew we had a pretty good catch. Some of the highlights included 40 drinker moths (a rather odd looking, golden coloured moth), 19 true lovers knots, 14 smokey wainscots and 15 ingrailed clays. Don't moths have such cool names? A few more with good names that we caught included 1 oblique striped snout, 1 lesser swallow prominent, 2 green carpets and 4 map-winged swifts. We also had 12 Manchester treble bars, a nationally scarce Flanders Moss speciality, the correctly named large emerald and as its name suggests a very dull looking plain wave that is actually locally very scarce. But the absolutely highlight was 5 beautifully fresh, newly hatched, great brocades. This is a nationally scarce moth that sometimes migrates over from Europe but a small number actually breed in the UK. At Flanders we thought we had found the caterpillars before but this was definite proof that the moths breed on the nature reserve. There hadn't been many more than 5 records for the whole of central Scotland before so to catch 5 individuals in 1 trap was something special.
I also set a small trap over the other side of the Moss which I checked afterwards. This one has a weaker bulb so attracts fewer moths but still managed 32 moths of 11 species of which 2 we hadn't caught in the big trap, the subtlety beautiful iron prominent and the way over the top garden tiger. All in all not a bad haul and a bit more of the jigsaw puzzle of the moth world of Flanders Moss pieced together.
