A Night At Grimes Graves

Cream-spot Tiger

A change of tack today. The Norfolk Moth Group were hoping to set up several moth traps at Grimes Graves, in Thetford Forest, tonight. The majority of the day was making sure my own trap worked. By the time I headed off it was absolutely chucking it down. I had planned to walk around Lynford Arboretum first but I ended up just sitting in the car listening to Brazil v Chile on TalkSport.

I did have a damp Firecrest in the car park and several Crossbills overhead but little else.

I headed off to Grimes Graves for 8:30pm just as the rain gave up. There was quite a turn out with 12 people and 5 traps.

There were one or two birds to seen and heard. Both Tawny and Long-eared Owl were heard calling and two Nightjar seen.

By the time I left the site, at 1:30am, I had trapped over 80 species of moth with several still to be identified. Lots of Breckland specialities as expected. A huge number of Obilque-striped (17), Clouded Buff and Cream-spot Tiger and also a couple of new species for me such as Grass Emerald, Anania verbiscalis and Sophronia semicostella. A full list of species can be seen on the NMS website soon but here are some of the highlights.