17 April, 2016

Mothing... flat out

I spent the duration of this evening at one of my favourite local spots - a small, isolated patch of deciduous woodland out towards Powick. I'm not sure who owns it (or even if it is owned) but the secluded nature of the woodland - situated at the bottom of a damp meadow and bordered on all sides by expansive arable fields - means that it gets little footfall from the public (or at least that's what I like to tell myself).


The ground flora is typical of semi-natural woodland at this time of year, with Wood Anemones and Bluebells forming a carpet of colour through which I carefully trod in search of invertebrates. There wasn't a huge amount going on in terms of moth activity, but I did tap these two vibrant characters from their daytime roost on an oak tree branch.

Caloptilia robustella

Dyseriocrania subpurpurella

Colt's-foot


Despite being 'local', it still takes a good 15 minutes to cycle to the wood. Unfortunately, I returned to my bike to find I'd picked up a nasty puncture on the way over, meaning a long and sobering walk home along the busy main road. On the plus side, it gave me my first cringy blog post title pun in a long while!

2 comments:

Bob Bushell said...

Beautiful moths, and the bluebells.

Billy Dykes said...

Cheers Bob. Lovely to see the bluebells back.