A somewhat different blog today. With the temperature due to be up at 30oC+ on Saturday and Sunday, and needing something to pass the time, this blog post is about an event scheduled for last Friday and Saturday at Lower Moor Farm. The plan was to provide an event for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Watch Group, their junior branch, based at Lower Moor Farm. We set up in the grounds of the Lakeside Care Farm at LMF. The event was organised by Rosie and Nic, Rosie works for the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, having worked for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for a good few years (and is one of my ringing trainees), whereas Nic works for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.
The Care Farm is a place for vulnerable and / or challenged young people and was featured on the BBC’s Countryfile programme back in 2019. My lack of modesty allows me to mention that it was the second time that I had demonstrated bird ringing on Countryfile, the first time was at the Help4Heroes rehabilitation site at Tedworth House in early 2014, where I ran monthly sessions for the beneficiaries, staff and visitors from 2013 until it closed, due to the impacts of Covid, in 2020.
Friday evening was going to be bat finding and moth trapping, Saturday was intended to be bird ringing. Unfortunately, the forecast for the Saturday was far too windy for setting nets at LMF, so Ellie J set a couple of nets for Friday evening instead. One of them was just too blowy from the outset and caught nothing and we closed it early. The other caught just four birds: all of which arrived and were processed before the target audience arrived at 20:30. Two juveniles: a Chiffchaff and a Wren and two adults, a Great Tit and a Blackcap. After the children and their parents arrived, although we left the net open until dark, we didn’t get another bird: that might have been something to do with the enthusiastic noises coming from the attendees.
The children were great: I took about 50 small pots with me, all of which disappeared, all of which came back with a variety of insects and other invertebrates for me to identify (or blag my way around it if I couldn’t). The first things that they started bringing back were the excuviae of dragonflies, they looked mainly like Broad-bodied Chasers but there are so many species of both dragonfly and damselfly there, it is definitely worth a visit for them alone.
I set the moth trap away at 20:00 and, at first, all we saw were hordes of midges and mosquitoes. I was pleased that, for once, I had remembered to pack the insect repellent: not a single bite! Eventually a few moths started turning up alongside the midges and we ended up with a perfectly reasonable catch:
Moth List:
Some photos of the moths, in no particular order:
Agapeta hamana
Blackneck
Brown-tail
Calamatropha paludella
Common Footman
Dingy Footman
Drinker
Common Wave
Elephant Hawkmoth
Flame Shoulder
Grey Tortrix agg. (i.e. impossible to identify without dissection)
Muslin Footman
Ringed China-mark
Ruby Tiger
Fan-footed Wave
Smoky Wainscot
Striped Wainscot
Dusky Thorn
Peach Blossom
I might have got a few wrong but, on the whole, I think it is pretty accurate. Those Waves are a bit difficult at the best of times, and when so many of them are pale and interesting, it an lead to error.
The key thing is that the children, and their parents, had a really good time of it – and made it totally enjoyable for us as well. They all started leaving at just after 10:30 and, after packing up, and potting up as many moths as I could for photographing the next day, I got away about 11:30, grateful that I wasn’t getting up at 5:00 the next morning to set nets for ringing!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 