Newsletter no. 1 April 2000

SUCCESSFUL FIRST MEETING

The first meeting of the Herts. Moth Group took place on Saturday 8th April 2000. Thirty-four people were present, and a further seven wished to come but were unable and sent apologies. A total of fifty were invited so this is a very encouraging result indeed. It is appropriate to record here our thanks to Tom and Janet Gladwin for arranging the meeting room at Digswell. Everyone chipped in and I am pleased to report that they were not out of pocket at the end of the day.

We started with a "pep talk" from Brian Goodey of the Essex Moth Group. Some very helpful dos and don'ts were forthcoming and I think I speak for everyone present when I say that Brian's talk was both interesting and helpful. After the talk, Colin Plant, the Hertfordshire Moth Recorder (appointed by the Herts. Natural History Society), gave a summary of the current state of recording (see below) and Rob Souter, Moth Officer for the Herts. and Middlesex Branch of Butterfly Conservation gave a summary of BC's role in the increasingly popular study of moths. In particular he emphasises the considerable cooperation that continues to take place between BC and HNHS.

There followed a prolonged tea-break, during which a wide variety of moth books were available for examination and several exhibits were on display. Copies of the London Natural History Society book Larger Moths of the London Area were available for sale at a reduced price as were copies of the Herts and Middlesex Butterfly and Moth Reports produced by Butterfly Conservation.

The final hour was spent in informal discussion and a very wide range of topics was covered.

It was agreed that the Herts Moth Group would be an informal group with no membership fee. It would be open to anyone with an interest in Hertfordshire moths, whatever that interest may be. A membership card was provided to those present - this is modelled on the card provided to members of Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica and bears a message to landowners asking that they cooperate in enabling the bearer to carry out recording work. A space is provided to paste a passport-style photo if desired, though this is not essential. There was a general agreement that a few organised field trips would be welcomed. This would enable less experienced members to learn from their peers in a friendly, informal situation, as well as providing valuable records for the county. Consequently, a series of trips has been arranged (see below) to cover three main habitat types (woodland, chalk grassland and marshland) spread over as much of the county as possible so that attendance does not necessarily mean a journey from one side of the county to the other.

Graham White, Conservation Manager of the Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust emphasised the lack of moth records from almost all the Trust's nature reserves and invited moth group members to carry out recording work, including light trapping, on these sites. This offer was warmly received. It was agreed that anyone who wished to start recording on a particular site should initially telephone Graham and he would either make initial arrangements or supply the telephone number of the site warden. Graham can be contacted at the Trust office on 01727 858901 during office hours. Records from trips to Trust reserves should be sent in via Colin Plant so they can be properly validated before being forwarded to Graham.

There was much discussion on the nature of moth recording. The new system of storing records within the Lotus Approach database allows for all the data required to be stored and then disseminated. Whilst Colin is more concerned with distribution data, several people had there own interests and may find the data useful. In particular, numerical data from traps operated every night might be useful in detecting trends in population. The county database can now store the data that is needed for this and other projects and disseminated, after validation to those who need it. There was an overwhelming agreement that it was confusing both to suppliers of data and to those who may wish to access it to have more than one address for the submission of records. It was therefore agreed that all moth records for Hertfordshire should, in the first instance, be sent to Colin Plant for validation and entry. He will then pass on the data to anyone who needs it for more in-depth surveys. Anyone who has such a need is invited to get in touch with Colin.

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THE PRESENT STATE OF MOTH RECORDING IN HERTFORDSHIRE

At the end of March 2000, the database contained 21,565 records of Hertfordshire moths. All records received by me as county recorder are now entered, as are all records sent separately to Rob Souter, the Moth Officer for the Herts and Middlesex Branch of Butterfly Conservation by members of that organisation. The total comprises 1410 species of which 589 are traditionally regarded as larger moths (macrolepidoptera) and 821 are microlepidoptera. These are figures which compare well with adjacent counties. Reliable records listed in Foster's 1937 Hertfordshire list (Foster, 1937), and updates, have also been entered (as far as interpretation of his idiosyncratic nomenclature permit), as also have records from the book Larger Moths of the London Area. Micro moth records up to the start of the Tortricidae have also been extracted by me from the maps maintained by Maitland Emmet for the Harley Books series Moths and butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland. We ran out of time at the start of Tortricidae, but Maitland has since been through the maps and found a further 21 species records in Tortricidae, Pyralidae and Pterophoridae, bring the county moth total to 1431 species.

On the down side, these are not all "current" records. Some will certainly now be extinct (e.g., Small Eggar, Reed Leopard), some might just possibly be re-found (e.g., Argent and Sable, Heart Moth, White-spotted Pinion) and others darn well ought to be still here (mostly micros). Arbitrarily taking the last twenty years as being the "current" period, the numbers of moths in each ten-kilometre square of the county are summarised in Table 1, below. Just for the present exercise, the best recorded square at TL42 is regarded as being more or less completely recorded (though in reality there will be a few more species to find, of course) and so is scored as 100%. Against this theoretical maximum, the numbers of species in the other 10-Km squares are presented as a percentage of those in TL42.

This gives a rough guide to the level of coverage in each square.

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