Mothing stats

One might ostensibly refer to mid-October as the point in the year at which the mothing season is beginning to draw to a close. There are still plenty of autumnal moths to be seen, (various Sallows, Merveil du Jour, Red-line and Yellow-line Quakers, Bricks etc, and then winter moths (Winter Moth, November Moth, December Moth etc) around and a chance of rare migrants but from now on, a cold lighting-up night might give you a blank from here on until mid to late February…it can be a gloomy time for moth-ers, although perhaps not quite as gloomy as it is for the moth-ers we know as butterfliers.
One of several Convolvulus Hawk-moths that nectared on my garden tobacco plants in the summer of 2022
Anyway, I’ve done sone totting up from my records. Just in case you’re interested in the details of this year’s mothing here in Cottenham and with a couple of off-site sessions. I have counted about 7500 moths of some 318 species in 200 lighting-up sessions so far this year. I’ve been mothing since July 2018 and have recorded 460 species in that time. 60 of those species were new to me this year alone.
Light Crimson Underwing was drawn to the LepiLED in the New Forest session in 2022
In the previous three seasons, the new-for-me numbers were in the 30s. However, a mothing session in the New Forest, one in Dorset, and success with garden tobacco plants here, bumped up the NFMs, that and my being more diligent in logging micro moths. If I remember rightly, I d...

Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - October 14, 2022 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs