Chippenham Fen - 14/06/19

I got a very kind invite to Chippenham Fen on Friday night from James-Harding Morris.

Having had a little experience with Reed-bed habitats before, namely Sawbridgeworth Marsh and Rye Meads, I had an inkling of what might grace the traps.

Also two target species for the year at the site were hopefully going to show up, both would be new species for me.

We amassed 10 traps between 5 of us, also being accompanied by three of the workers.

Despite the deluge of rain for most of the week, the site wasn't as boggy as I expected, meaning the levels must drain off fairly quickly over the peat and clay soil.

I set up 3 of my traps line astern along one of the tracks, and turned on the lights at around 9:30pm. The sky was fairly light for even an hour later owing to the clear sky, but luckily the temperature did hold up fairly well despite the clear conditions.

Some really nice moths were observed at all of the lights. Silver Barred was literally the first moth in and one of two of the target species for the night, in fact it was my only example over my three lights.

Reed Leopard quickly followed, this appears to be common at this site as I counted over 20 individuals, a really unusual looking moth.

All in all, 7 species were new for me! Including Glyphipterix thrasonella, which is new for my UK records having previously seen them in France.

I started packing up at 2am as tiredness was kicking in and I knew I had an impending hour drive home.

61 species was fairly repectable but numbers were a little low, of coirse none of this matters when the quality of species are present.

All in all a fantastic experience of a well managed habitat.

Here is the total list

Macro Moths : 35 species Micro Moths : 26 species

Total : 61 species

Catch Report - 14/06/19 - Chippenham Fen - Cambridgeshire -1x 125w MV Robinson Trap, 1x twin 20w Wemite Actinic & 40w Actinic Trap & 1x 160w Mercury Blended Robinson Trap - 3 traps in total

Macro Moths

Brimstone Moth Clouded Border Clouded Brindle Common Carpet Common Swift Common Wainscot Common Wave Common White Wave Cream-bordered Green Pea Dark Arches Four-dotted Footman Ghost Moth Green Carpet Grey Pine Carpet Heart & Dart Large Nutmeg Large Yellow Underwing Light Arches Lime Speck Pug Maiden's Blush Marbled Minor Marbled White spot May Highflyer Orange Footman Pale Prominent Reed Leopard Setaceous Hebrew Character Shaded Pug Silver Barred Small Clouded Brindle Smoky Wainscot Striped Wainscot Treble Lines Turnip Moth White Point Willow Beauty

Micro Moths

Aethes rubigana Anania perlucidalis Apotomis turbidana Bactra sp Brachmia inornatella Cataclysta lemnata Chilo phragmitella Crambus lathoniellus Crambus pascuella Elachista albidella Elophila nymphaeata Emmelina sp prob monodactyla Ephestia sp Epinotia bilunana Epinotia demarniana Ethmia dodecea Glyphipterix thrasonella Mompha terminella Nematopogon metaxella Notocelia trimaculana Plutella xylostella Pseudargyrotoza conwagana Pterophorus pentadactyla Scoparia ambigualis Scoparia pyralella