Metal ingots and fenland felines

A couple of Sundays ago I and fellow moth-er Bill took a trip to Wicken Fen for a spot of trapping.

Armed with 3 mercury vapour Robinson traps we tried our luck in 2 different bits of habitat. One trap was in a bit of the woodland boardwalk section and the other two on the edge of a fen field.

The moth I really wanted to see turned up relatively quickly.

The rather lovely Silver Barred Deltote bankiana. This is a really restricted species, being found on Chippenham Fen and Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.  There is also a colony in Sandwich, Kent, with another colony near Dover. It apparently feeds on Purple Moor-grass and Smooth Meadow-grass.

The other species I was there to see turned up too. Reed Leopard Phragmataecia castaneae another predominantly East Anglian specialty. These are quite odd looking moths with the abdomen extending beyond the wings and looking almost larval-like.

Another new moth was the rather lovely Cosmopterix scribaiella. My night time photography skills just don't do it justice! It was only discovered in the UK in 1996 and is restricted to the fens and a stretch of the south coast.

There were a good selection of other moths plus some beetles (see next post). Our list wasn't exhaustive as in the end we had to give up on trickier micros so that we could get home for some sleep before work!