The consequences of the very wet Summer completely ruined what would heve been a bumper trapping season. After a warm and dry Spring, almost continuous heavy rain during most of June and July, virtually wiped out huge proportions of the larval stages of many species. Late Summer and early Autumn fliers suffered considerably and numbers were well down on previous years and in a several instances, completely non-existant.

Regular trapping from several sections of Lound Wood from the middle of January onwards, produced all of the expected early species. Two Oak Nycteoline came to light in Lound Wood on the last day of January and three others followed in March and then May. January also saw the start of many species producing earlier first records than in previous years, including a very early Oak Beauty on January 16th. This run of early dates continued throughout February, March and for the whole of the Spring period.

May 23rd provided another excellent night's catch of 327 moths of 66 species in a total of 4h 25m trapping time. On what was one of the year's warmest nights, four new species for the area included three micros, whilst a Poplar Grey was perhaps an overdue macro addition. There was also a second area record of Bird's Wing, following on from one at almost the same trapping site in 2006. Overall, this was the best May trapping session ever at Eakring and lasted nearly four and a half hours. June 8th's trapping session produced a catch of 219 moths of 63 species in 2h 45m trapping time and although trapping at Lound Wood later on June 16th provided fewer moths, it proved to be a night much better than expected after torrential rain earlier in the afternoon. Highlight of the session was the Great Oak Beauty, which was the last moth to arrive at the trap before we packed up. The year's highest haul of moths came on August 10th, when 343 moths of 83 species arrived in 2h 45m trapping time.

Lound Wood had earlier produced three records of Pale Oak Beauty between June 4th and 16th, before going one better and producing the previously mentioned Great Oak Beauty on June 16th. This was another extremely unexpected record as Sherwood Forest is believed to be the only area in Nottinghamshire for the nationally notable Great Oak Beauty and Lound Wood certainly lies well away from the nearest known site for the moth at Clumber Park. Another unexpected moth seen, was the single day-flying Orange Underwing (Hare Hill Wood, April 7th) This species is obviously overlooked in the county, as we also found it at several forest localities during the course of March and April.

Other notable moths recorded during the year were Maiden's Blush (Lound Wood, June 4th and September 4th) Scorched Carpet (Lound Wood, June 11th) Narrow-winged Pug (Lound Wood, September 4th) Chamomile Shark (Lound Wood, May 10th) Tissue (Lound Wood, July 18th) and Angle-striped Sallow (Lound Wood, September 8th) The Orange Footman continued it's range expansion in Nottinghamshire and eventually produced four records on three June dates.

During April three Early Grey records were the first for several years. Despite large amounts of larval foodplant available, Early Grey remains a rare moth here. Both Puss Moth and Sallow Kitten were trapped as adults for the first time, with the latter being new for the area. Two records of Pine Hawk-moth involved three adults and there was a decent number of the three commoner Hawk-moths. An Olive on August 10th, was the second Eakring record and three Leopard Moth were trapped on two late July dates and were the first since one back in 2004.

It was disappointing then, that 2007 gradually saw a decrease in moth populations and even on nights when conditions were absolutely perfect for trapping (overcast and warm) the trap failed to attract consistantly high numbers of moths.

Migrant moths in 2007

An extremely poor year for migrants, yet it began promisingly with a very early Silver Y arrival on April 28th. Two were in the area on May 1st before numbers arrived on May 6th (including 13 counted around the edge of an Oil-seed Rape field at Hare Hill Wood. Odd Silver Y's continued to arrive throughout much of the Spring period until June 29th. A resulting second brood was evident from August 9-October 22nd. Unlike the large influx of 2006, when the most Silver Y's seen together at any one time was 60 nectaring on Valerian at dusk, the same site this year, produced a peak of just nine.

Unfortunately though, Nottinghamshire still continues to suffer from a general lack of interest in micro moths and so, information concerning the status of any particular species within the county is still not available. Personally, I find this to be extremely frustrating, but Nottinghamshire does now have a micro moth recorder who is working to produce some sort of county micro list. Consequently, some of the moths we recorded from Eakring this year, may well be county firsts.

The lack of interest in micro moths is perhaps understandable. Identification of come species/groups can be almost impossible without dissection, but with the advent of digital photography, any lack of interest cannot be due to a lack of beauty. Quite frankly, some of the moths we recorded during the course of the year were absolutely stunning.

Acleris literana prefers Oak woodland and is said to be distributed locally across the UK. Two were taken at light from Lound Wood on August 27th, whilst a moth which was formerly only known from the highlands of Scotland (Acleris logiana) has possibly colonised parts of southern UK, probably as a result of migration. One was trapped along the edge of Lound Wood on August 10th. The last of the three, Eucosma campoliliana has a largely coastal distribution within the UK and was a surprise daytime find at Eakring Meadows on July 7th.

Two other leaf miners discovered were Eriocrania unimaculella and Eriocrania semipurpurella, with occupied mines of both found on Birch in early May, along the edge of a small copse in the Red Hill area. This same copse hosts all five Eriocranias present here.

A search of Poplars near Leyfields in August produced two more new leaf mining moths, when the mines of Phyllocnistis unipunctella and Stigmella trimaculella were found.

The Psychid Diplodoma laichartingella was netted on two dates from Lound Wood, where an old Psyche caste larval case provided a second record. Three new Coleophoras included cases of Coleophora lusciniaepennella on Sallow, C. hemerobiella on Hawthorn and C. anatipennella, recorded as an adult at light on July 8th.