Midgley last night

Hebrew Character 2
Clouded Drab 1
Early Grey 1

April Tips on Sallow

If you have a garage or outside shed, etc, now is the time to start collecting Sallow catkins which have fallen on to the ground from the Sallow trees. Many of these fallen catkins will often contain various Tortricidae, Geometridae and Pug larvae. The way to check the catkins for larvae is very easy. Simply spread them out on white kitchen roll in some seed trays or similar, no need for any sort of lid at this stage. If you keep checking the catkins you will see signs of frass appearing on the white kitchen roll under the occupied catkins. Once you find these move them to a lidded container and keep an eye on the situation. The larvae may need fresh catkins adding and then as soon as the sallow leaves are out pop some leaves in the tub with the occupied catkins. Some catkins will have only one species and some will have more than one species on/in them. Most of these are fine kept together until they are large enough to ID. The only exception to this are Pug larvae which I find are mostly cannibalistic even when enough food is present, if you want more than one survivor its pays to house pug larvae in solitary confinement ! Its great fun with catkins at this time of the year as you never know what you might find and rear through.

We are now getting close to the one of the best times of the year to find moths on natural food sources. Any night now when its cloudy and reasonably mild its the time to go "Sallowing". This is one of the great classic tecniques used before the advent of MV lights to collect large numbers of moths in one place. Cromwell Bottom is an ideal place to try this out but any area with large numbers of Sallow in bloom is fine. You simply stick a few pots in your pocket, pack a decent torch and a butterfly net. In practice one simply walks around shining the torch on Sallow catkins until you pick out a moth feeding, they can usually be spotted by the light reflecting off their eyes. One a good night there can be hundreds of moths on each Sallow bush, but often around here one is lucky to get a few dozen per bush. If its moth sp you wish to confirm or look through a hand lens its usually dead easy to simply pop the net over them and tap them off the catkins. They are mainly Orthosia spp, but also Chestnut, Satellite, perhaps some Thorns and Pugs. The only other time of year when one can get the same effect with natural sources is in autumn when you search Ivy Blossom in the same manner.

This was originally posted by Paul Talbot in April 2008

Knott Wood Sunday night

We are having a session on sunday night if anyone fancies it,,if we meet at Saville Bowling Club at the small car park bout 1945 ish, its 10 min walk,although it will be muddy in parts.Oak Beauty is target.

A Nice way to round off March

My eigth new species of the month came in the form of this Mottled Grey found resting on a dry stone wall at Norland village this morning. Its cold grey forewings matching the cold wet skies of this small pennine village.Charlie

sallowing

Dear All, shall we have another crack at sallowing. Can I cuggest we combine it with a lamp so at least we get something later on and shall we try somewhere else than Cromwell Bottom which has not been that successful. Any suggestions? Win

Why did the caterpillar cross the road?

Sandra has just returned from a week in northen Spain (just south of Pyrenees) and took these videos of a line of caterpillars crossing a main road. The photos show the caterpillar and the cocoons she thinks they came from. We reckon they might be Small Eggar but really aren't sure.

Knott Wood sat night

Mottled Grey

Red Chestnut

Engrailed
Met with Bri,Winston and Martyn at Knott wood last night, in Northowram the wind was cold and the skies clear whilst at Hebden it was pleasantly mild with light wind.A good catch followed for the time of year.One Orange underwing was seen whilst setting up ---
Common Quaker 40+
Chestnut 8
Satellite 3(white spots)
Twin Spotted quaker 6
Yellow Horned 10
Mottled Grey 6
Hebrew Character 2
Clouded drab 7
Engrailed 3
Red Chestnut 6
Diurnea fagella 3
Although most were attracted to light all species were also found by searching tree trunks with a torch.

Friday Night in Hebden

2 x Common Quaker
2 x Satelite (One white spots, on orange)
2 x Chestnut

win :-)

Knott Wood sat 27 03 10

We are having a session tomorrow night if anyone fancies it,sorry its short notice,if we meet at Saville Bowling Club at the small car park bout 1845 ish, its 10 min walk,although it will be muddy in parts.regards Bri.

Spring Flowers

Hi All, sorry to go a bit off topic, at this time of year these little yellow flowers are everywhere near me. They always come after the snowdrops. what are they? Winston

Entomological Event at Frodsham

Hi all
Just a quick if somewhat belated plug for the Lancashire and Cheshire Annual Entomologcal meeting at Frodsham (around 45 mins up the M62). This is an annual event in which attracts decent (usually a couple of hundred) audiences and many exhibits with a couple of interesting talks given by experts in the afternoon session. Sue and I run a book stall, Ian Kimber usually runs a stall showing his UK Moths site and Rob Edmunds Leaf Mine site. Many moffers who attend such as Ben Smart, Ian Smith, Steve Hind will probably be know to you from various Moth E-forums. Entry is free and its held in a modern hall with decent heating, plenty of parking and you can buy food in ther hall or pubs and shops in the vicinity. Paul Hill of Bio-Equip will also be running a stall selling Moffing and other entomological equipment.

The meeting is open to the public from 11am until around 4/5 pm and opens this coming Saturday 27th March. Sue and I hope to see you there.

FRODSHAM COMMUNITY CENTRE Fluin Lane, Frodsham, Cheshire WA6
7QN
Phone 01928 732222,
GR...SJ521777

Multimap link
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=WA6&countryCode=GB#map=53.29613,-2.71903|16|4&bd=useful_information&loc=GB:53.29612:-2.71904:16|WA6 7QN|WA6 7QN

Catkins

Did I dream it or are there larvae that feed on catkins?
Are you there Paul?

Derek

Fame at last?

See article below from Birdguides, note the comments, we get a mention!
http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=1996#comments

Knott Wood Hebden Bridge,21 03 10

Spent most the day at Knottwood,7 Orange Underwings,had a go with mv,quite overwhelming,30 plus Yellow Horned,10 twinspot 40 common quakers,2engrailed,12 march moth,2 mottled grey,2 clouded drab,2 hebrew characters,5 chestnuts,2 diurnia fagella melanistic forms,2 pics of y horned,anntenae look more orangy to me !

March Moth?

The only moth of last night, am I correct in this being a (well marked) March Moth?

Pixie Wood Sunday

Managed at least 9 Orange underwings today flying just above the canopy at Pixie wood some fantastic ariel displays going on in the sunshine.

Friday night

Cocoon found on wavy hair grass on Friday night aprox 7mm long,any ideas (lep ?)

Keep the Faith

After the longest coldest winter in living memory at last we have had a couple of warm days.So far this week,
Oak Beauty x 1
Red Sword Grass x1
Pale Pinion x 2
Pale brindled Beauty x2
common Quaker x 5
hebrew Character x 3
March Moth x 3
Satellite x 2
Chestnut x 5
Went with Bri last night up Langfield looking for larvae and found 25 + Clouded Bordered Brindle ,1 lesser yellow underwing and 4 brown and 5 Green form of Anomalous larvae.

Knott Wood Hebden Bridge 19 03 10

Just had a couple of hours scanning the birches saw 2 Orange Underwings,well chuffed,thought it might have been to windy ! its great when you get your target species.regards Bri.

Awakening

Hi everybody. I have been dormant for some time. Frozen in on the Rochdale canal! My 4th winter on the canal so far and it stands alone as completely different to all the previous ones. Anyway, really thawing this week. Put trap out for first time last night (17th March) and the following gathered...

Chestnut 5
March Moth 3
Yellow Horned 1
Common Quaker 3
Dotted Border 1
Total - 13

Very pleased with the dotted border as this species has eluded the lens every year so for one reason or another.

Also went through the fallingroyd tunnel 2 days ago - 4 Heralds. probably more as I couldn't stop to look properly. Winston