..............And still time for a few more this year! At the beginning of September, I really didn't expect to achieve this target. But bit by bit and with the help of a few surprises, we finally reached the triple century. The good thing is, there is still a few that I could easily get too. Feathered Thorn, Brick, Scarce Umber and December Moth are all regulars in the garden- and will there be a chance/time for one more surprise? Well, possibly not. But it's still been a hell of a year for garden trapping and one that's eclipsed all my previous records.
November Moth agg.
NFY
As you can see by the list below, the weather has made a massive difference to the count. The temperature has plummeted to half that of the weekend. On Sunday I found a Clouded Yellow butterfly for the first time in the village, no doubt brought in on the warm southerly wind. This morning in contrast, I witnessed huge numbers of Redwing streaming over the garden heading south west in varying sized flock. There was also two Fieldfare and my largest ever garden tick flock of six Crossbill all heading in the same direction.
Upper Caldecote Garden- 1 trap 15 of 13 species-
1745 Mallow (Larentia clavaria) 1
1764 Common Marbled Carpet (Chloroclysta truncata) 1
1795x November Moth agg. (Epirrita dilutata agg.) 1
2092 Shuttle-shaped Dart (Agrotis puta) 1
2102 Flame Shoulder (Ochropleura plecta) 1
2107 Large Yellow Underwing (Noctua pronuba) 1
2126 Setaceous Hebrew Character (Xestia c-nigrum) 2
2232 Black Rustic (Aporophyla nigra) 1
2240 Blair's Shoulder-knot (Lithophane leautieri) 1
2267 Beaded Chestnut (Agrochola lychnidis) 2
2272 Barred Sallow (Xanthia aurago) 1
2361 Rosy Rustic (Hydraecia micacea) 1
That's an awesome garden tally for mid Beds area and I won't grumble about losing the wine race, no chance of catching you now, in fact I should have conceded in August. SO, I am considering either moving back to Kent or deploying chemical weapons for next years contest. In the meantime I will trawl the local Vintners for that classic Och the Nooveau Estates, Scottish Shiraz.
ReplyDeleteThere's some chemical weapons going very cheap in Syria at the moment and I think I would rather have some more of that Israeli Red again, than a Scottish one!
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