Thursday, March 18, 2010

A box of moths!

Last nights catch was the best of the year so far, by far....

1663 March Moth 17
2139 Red Chestnut 2 a new species for me and what a cracker.
2182 Small Quaker 1 another new moth for me.
2187 Common Quaker 11
2188 Clouded Drab 1
2190 Hebrew Character 12
2256 Satellite 2 one of each colour form.
2258 Chestnut

Total 47 moths of 8 species....



Top left - Red Chestnut , right, Small Quaker
Bottom left - Clouded Drab and right, Satellites



This morning the trip to work was quite eventful with a Peregrine over the road at Longhoughton and 12 Whooper Swans flew N at Warkworth.

Tonight we had to go on Toad crossing patrol at our lane end. We rescued 26 but another dozen were already pizza'd by the time we arrived. We released the saved ones nearer to their destination, well away from traffic... 

4 comments:

Skev said...

Bloody good catch there Stewart - still rubbish down here in suburban VC55.

Agree about Red Chestnut - I always like to see these. We are lucky to have the closely related White-marked in some of our better woodland site in Rutland awell.

Shame about the toads - surprised there's enough traffic near you to flatten many?!

Anonymous said...

Cracking pics Stewart and well done on the 2 new species.

Yep, i`ll also be on Toad patrol, anytime soon. Their inability to jump makes the roadside kerbs a major obstacle.

Warren Baker said...

Clouded Drab - much like my patch visit felt like today :-)

Stewart said...

Mark - Yes the amount of moths certainly suprised me! Bodes well for the summer....

Not much traffic Mark, but so many toads it only takes a couple of cars to do that damage.

Dean - Cheers. That Dotted Border does look well too. Frogs have it easy, leaping the whole road in 4 steps!

Warren - Nice one...