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Wednesday, March 16, 2022

The Ides of March

Last year I switched from producing hand written labels for all my specimens to printing ones. I invested in a laser printer and the resulting labels looked not only neater but it also meant that I could get the size of the labels down to match my new smallest card size of 12x6mm. 

The only issue has been waiting until I have enough specimens to make it worth printing out a set. I usually wait until I have at least half a sheet of A4's worth. I can then guillotine the remaining bit off and re-use by feeding through the manual feed tray.

Anyway, tonight that's what I have been doing. Just need to get the labels on and get them in the right storage boxes now!



I find the process of identifying and carding, rather relaxing and can easily do hours infront of the microscope without batting an eyelid. Can't say that I'm as fond of the labelling!

Yesterday was the Ides of March and so in honour of the auspicious date I decided to give the MV trap its first outing of the year. The result this morning was 5 moths of 4 species. Still, nice to get the season off to a start  

Early Thorn

Oak Beauty

Hebrew Character

Small Quaker
Hopefully just the start of things to come....

2 comments:

  1. I might try a light trap tomorrow evening. A bit of warmth, low wind, looks possible. It has been too cold here to this point. So cold that I'm seeing very few beetles, turning over a few rocks yesterday revealed zero. Your beetle collection is so impressive and such a valuable resource. I can't manage to do that, even my Flickr collection is well behind. The beetle specimens I take go to the CR. I've added an ethics link to my blog referencing that Chris Raper blog post and something Roger Morris wrote on his blog back in 2015. This questions keep being raised, driving the car a short distance on a warm evening kills far more insects than most amateur collecting ever will I would estimate.

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