Moth survey results - part 1

OK, here's the first set of results from the moth survey. But I'll start with a picture of one of the best looking moths, called Buff Arches:
The key results from our wood and the wayleave were:

• 102 species recorded across all survey sites (two of which were in our wood).
  
• These included two Red Data Book species (Triangle, Olive Crescent) and at least three other Nationally Scarce species (Clay Fan-foot, Waved Black and Festoon).
• In the part of the coppice we had cut 48 species were recorded, including both Red Data Book species and also Clay Fan-foot and Triangle which were in higher numbers than any other survey this summer.

Here's how it was done. Each of the six traps used a white sheet, a mercury vapour lamp, and a box full of old egg boxes and with a sloping glass lid to allow moths in but make it hard for them to get out. There was a petrol-fuelled generator used for each trap, or sometimes one between two where they were near each other:
Here's a couple in action:
They gave the wood an eerie glow - here's a long exposure photo:
And here's the Moth Men in action - they're amazing, they could recognise dozens of species instantly, and as each trap was opened the action was surprisingly fast-paced, I could barely keep up taking photos, and Steve Wheatley was scribbling madly in his notebook to keep track of everything.
I don't think the survey would work without experts like these - there simply isn't time to be looking stuff up in ID books, the moths would have flow away by the time you'd figured out which the first one was!

Anyway, here's some more pictures of the ones I have names for, the rest will follow when I know what they are...

Ruby Tiger
Gold Triangle
Small Emerald
Large Emerald
Peppered Moth
Scorched Carpet (yes, that really is its name!)
And then several other things attracted by the light: UPDATE: you can see the results of our 2009 moth survey here.

In other news, we went up to the wood again this morning and did a bit more to the new shelter - the basic frame should be ready to put up tomorrow, unless we decide to go down to the beach instead! The wood was looking particularly nice on a sunny day like today:
I thought it was time I look some pictures of the coppice regrowth with Tracy standing next to them for scale - it's amazing how fast this stuff grows! Here's a chestnut and then a birch (which was cut a couple of months later on):
We also saw several butterflies around the wood, though they're looking a bit battered! There were two Speckled Woods fluttering around where we had coppiced by the pond, here's one of them:
And White Admirals again, back in their favourite place in the cant we cut last winter:
That's all for now....

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

A couple of videos of Pete and Tom

Out cockatiels haven't feature on the blog for a while, so to prevent them feeling left out, here's couple of clips of their latest antics: Tom chasing a grape around the table, and Pete declaring which bits of the furniture belong to him.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Badger video!

We went badger watching again this evening, after doing a bit more work on the shelter. This time, rather than use the SLR with it's somewhat noisy shutter, I used our compact camera and took a video instead. Here you go:


Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Rabbits and badgers

Here's what we saw on Tuesday before dusk - the moths will come in a later post, as I'm waiting for a list of them so I can ID all the ones I got photos of (there are a lot, and apparently 102 species were recorded that night!).

Down at the bottom of the wayleave we spied a rabbit through the brambles:
It was really not very afraid of us, perhaps it hasn't learned yet that humans might be dangerous...
As it got towards 8pm we went over to the badger sett to watch. Badgers have very poor eyesight, but a very good sense of smell, so as long as you sit downwind and keep fairly quiet you can get within 10 metres! While we were waiting I got a couple of photos of the scene, where you can see the disturbed earth around the sett:
We waited for about 15 minutes before we heard a rustling, and it got closer VERY slowly. After another 15 minutes a badger plodded into view, snuffling around in the undergrowth looking for food. We tried to get a photo, but the shutter noise made it wary, and it disappeared into the sett. We waited though, and it came out again a couple more times. After talking to David from Scrag Copse we've learned that we should wait until we've watched them a few times before trying to photograph them, so they can get used to our presence. Also, we need to go earlier, as we saw the badger coming back to the sett, not coming out!

We're going up this evening to do a bit more work on the shelter, so after that we might wander over again and see what we see...

Mike

UPDATE: we got a video of the badgers, see it here.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Wildlife watching...

Last night was great! First we saw a rabbit in the wayleave, really close. Then we went to watch the badger sett, and saw one several times! After that the moth survey people arrived, and we went round with them looking at the huge range of moths they caught in the traps (don't worry, they were all released). I shall do a couple of posts on them, but probably not until Thursday...

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.