 |
| Thrift Clearwing |
Much of my day on Skokholm is spent monitoring seabird colonies, with a particular emphasis at the moment spent studying breeding success in Fulmars and providing assistance with the ongoing Storm-petrel tape playback sessions around the island in an effort to understand more about the island's breeding population of Stormies.
When the time allows, I've been keeping a butterfly net close at hand in an effort to catch, identify and ultimately increase the coverage of the island's (rather poorly known) micro moths. There have already been some quality finds including a sprinkling of new island records. My walk around the Fulmar study plot takes in some fantastic sheer cliffs, with lush colonies of Sea Campion and Thrift and the specialist moths that depend on them. Thrift Clearwing took a while to find, but eventually showed beautifully on a recent sunny morning, and Caryocolum vicinella was a nice find in one of the cliff-top hides...
 |
| Caryocolum vicinella |
 |
| Anania crocealis |
 |
| Eudonia lineola |
 |
| Aethes rubigana |
When the weather, time and fuel allows, I'm hoping to whip out the big Mercury Vapour trap for some hardcore island moth-trapping. Watch this space...
1 comment:
They were fantastic fine.
K
Post a Comment