Muxton Marsh Moth Night

The first of the Wrekin Forest Volunteers Moth Nights saw us arrive at Muxton Marsh, Shropshire on April 9, 2010  to set up our base camp and prepare for a full night of moth ID and recording. Note our new ‘Moth Pavilion’ which acts as a base to congregate, share stories and perhaps enjoy a glass of wine. Sophistication and comfort in moth recording is definitely the way forward!



I’m not sure how Liz managed it but she arrived on site carrying not only her camping equipment and her own moth box but enough food for everyone - and all this on the bus! What a star!
Although not billed as a public event, the leaflet-drop and posters at the site boundaries warning residents that the bright lights they may see wouldn’t be little green men landing, brought in a handful of welcome guests who seemed very interested in what we were doing and it wasn’t long before they were sharing our enthusiasm.

Here we see Leon at the back with I believe his 2 daughters. They live in one of the houses overlooking the meadow.



It was a cold night with a low of 1.6 deg C but we were blessed with a few interesting moths like this Water Carpet for instance Lampropteryx suffumata



Along with a slightly tattered Oak Nycteoline Nycteola revayana
   


In Les’s trap a fabulous micro-moth Acleris literana



and 7 Diurnea fagella micro-moths also popped in to say hello.



Nigel Hall came along to see what we were up to along with Jeff who I met last year whilst walking near home and just got chatting to as you do.

Fellow Wrekin Forest Volunteer Keith Fowler also joined us for around 3 hours and then came back early the next morning to help pack up. It was Les that called the gazebo a pavilion in order to make Keith feel a little more at home as he’s a big cricket fan - that’s cricket with stumps not crickets with legs!



Later on Shropshire’s County Moth Recorder Tony Jacques potted up a wonderful over-wintered Tawny Pinion Lithophane semibrunnea. We didn’t manage to take a pic of our specimen so I’ve borrowed this from www.ukmoths.org.uk


Around 1pm not long after Liz took a tumble face down after tripping on bramble Les, Liz and I took to our tents and Tony decided to spend a shivering and sleepless night in the Moth Pavilion keeping watch on the equipment and leaving his nice warm tent neatly packed up in the boot of his car. Liz’s sleeping bag turned out to be not that warm either so she failed to sleep too.

For those of us (i.e. Les and me!) who managed forty winks or so dawn soon came with the sun rising beautifully over the trees atop the pitmound.

All that was left to do was to do the final ID’s and count, pack up and head home to grab some breakfast with lashings of hot tea!



In total within the 4 traps we recorded 235 individuals across 21 species. Not bad for a dry but very cold early April night.

To see the full species list please visit the FILES section of the  Wrekin Forest Volunteers forum  (If you’re not already a member please feel free to register).

Our next Moth Night is this coming Saturday - May 8 at The Green Wood Centre and if you’d like more details please email me at paulewatts@gmx.com

Catch you all shortly
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