Will crave what has all gone away

The Fens must have been an amazing place to visit before they were drained. A varied landscape of water and woodland; a mixture of big open skies and claustrophobic views. The wildlife must have been abundant and spectacular too. 

Most of these places have been lost but there are some attempts to recreate some areas and to join up some of the last remaining fragments of this ancient landscape. Looking at old maps of the area it's almost possible to envisage what it must have been like. Almost.

Tuesday evening saw me heading to an East Cambridgeshire fenland site for a spot of moth trapping. The weather was warm and humid and we put out a couple of MV traps for a few hours. There were roding Woodcock and reeling Grasshopper Warblers as the sky darkened and the mosquitos came out.

There's a woodcock in the sky there somewhere....honest!

For a brief moment it could have been any time in the last 500 years but the spell was broken by a military helicopter cutting a sinister shape across the fading glow of the sunset.

Individual moth numbers were quite high but I'd expected more than than the 64 species recorded. There were  some obvious absences; not a single hawkmoth in sight, for instance.

Within the first hour we had recorded a couple of the fenland specialist moth species in the form of Silver Barred and Reed Leopard.

There were also quite a few Pale Oak Beautys in attendance, a species I don't often see given that the majority of my trapping is at home. They are a big moth!

The only new beetle (although I have a couple still to ID) was the tenebrioid Pseudocistela ceramboides. This is a crepuscular and nocturnal species. The larvae feed on fungus that grows on dead and decaying wood in tree hollows. They are also one of those beetles that are attracted to light, and I suspect most of the records come from this method. Looking a bit like the common Lagria hirta, they are bulkier, bigger and much less hairy. A cracking pair of antennae on them too. 

Not a bad place to spend a few hours.

Today's post title inspiration comes in the form of Future Islands.