Newsletter no. 4 December 2000

Page 2

How many members?

Membership of our group at the end of November stands at 72 persons who are listed on the database as having a separate address together with a further 13 who reside at an address occupied by one of the 72. This gives us a total membership of 85 people — not bad since we did not exist before last April!

Average attendance at field meetings

The average number of people at a field meeting has been 12. This represents 14.3% of the membership. The average attendance at field meetings of natural history and similar societies is said to be around 5%. We are, therefore, doing rather well.

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WEBSITE

The group’s web site has now been passed fully into my tender loving care – Rob Souter having now left us for several months. Rob has given me a great deal of training on how to add to and alter the web pages, and I think I have got the hang of it. At 12 December we had recorded 945 “hits” since the site was created on 30th August.

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EMAIL ADDRESSES

If Santa brings you an e-mail address for Xmas, please let me know so you can be put on the circulation list.

Time to send in your year 2000 records
It is now time to send me your moth records for the year 2000 (and any earlier ones if I do not already have them). If I can get all the records entered on the database by the end of January then I will be in a better position to make a sensible report at the meeting on 10^th February. At some stage during January, Terri Tarpey (one of the Essex botanists) will be visiting me to show me how to link the Herts moth database to the DMap mapping programme so that we will be able to produce instant maps for any species and can constantly review recording progress. I would like to have as much data as possible on the computer by the time she comes over.

Entry to the database is fast, but depends on the records being presented in some sort of logical order. It does not matter which order, but an order there must be.

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MACRO MOTHS

For site-based records, such as a garden or a trip out with a light trap, four recording forms are available for this purpose — English names alphabetically, English names in Log Book order, scientific names alphabetically and scientific names in Log Book order. If you have access to the web site you can download these from there and store copies on your own computer so that you can print one out each time it is needed. For those with no such access please ask me for the form you desire and then make lots of photocopies before filling them in and sending them back to me.

Use of these forms is not essential, however. If you are already able to generate lists in any order then these may be sent. Please note that lists/forms will not be returned unless requested and an sae enclosed.

For your garden, a single completed form for the year is acceptable, giving dates and numbers where possible for the rarer species as indicated on the forms. For other sites, it would help if I could have a separate form for each trip as this allows us to gather information on dates.

If at all possible, please avoid garden lists that are arranged in the order of appearance of each species. These are extremely time-consuming to enter. Please transfer the names to a recording form and send that instead. It may be a pain, but it is only one pain for you as opposed to several pains for me!

For casual records, or single species records (e.g., lists of localities for a few day-flying moths) it would help if the lists were arranged by species rather than by locality.

Please take care with difficult to identify species and those that simply can’t be done without looking at male genitalia. Both categories are indicated on the recording forms. There is no shame in recording “November Moth species”, “Dagger species” or “Common/Lesser Common Rustic”, for example, Indeed, it is FAR better to do this than to send me records of individual species that may not be correct. Know your limitations, declare them and then stick to them!

Please give dates and numbers where available for immigrant species – even the common ones such as the Silver Y.

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MICRO MOTHS

Please submit either alphabetically by genus or in Log book order if at all possible.

< Year 2001 field trips programme
I am pleased to discover from members that this year’s trips have been fun as well as a learning experience. Those who have not been on a trip yet will hopefully be inspired by Duncan’s article, below.

It has not been possible at this early stage, to fix a complete programme for 2001, because I am still waiting to hear from various landowners. However, I need to get this newsletter out before Xmas so there is sufficient advance notice for the winter indoor meeting. Further trips will be listed in the March newsletter.

Don Otter, the National Trust’s Warden at the Ashridge Estate, in the west of the county, positively welcomes moth group members to come along and record moths on the estate. This includes light trapping. All he asks for is a quick telephone call in advance to say where you will be (office number 01442 842488). This is essential; please introduce yourself as a member of the Herts Moth Group. The estate is a huge area of woodland and grassland and is likely to have as many good moths as the Broxbourne Woods. It is almost completely un-recorded! I hope to run lights at several places during the year; three visits are listed below, but members are encouraged to go themselves and record moths. Lists should be sent to me in the usual manner and I can then provide Don with validated and analysed lists at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the following are trips for the first part of the year. A target species would by the Mottled Grey Colostygia multistrigaria. I also hope to run some trips to Bramfield Woods, near Hertford and to Hexton Chalk Pit in the north. I can’t spread myself too thinly beyond April this far in advance because contract work takes me away at short notice. It would be really good if other group members who own a light trap could lead the odd field trip – even if it is only just down the road. We need records from all areas.

Additional “unofficial” trips will also take place from time to time. I will endeavour to invite people who live near to where I will be, but of course I can’t phone up 80 people each time I go out! Perhaps we could set up a phone pyramid?

Saturday, 31^st March 2001— Ashridge Estate (Herts/Bucks/Beds border area)

Assemble: from 6 to 6.30 pm, but we should be trapping in the car park area so latecomers can find us here without problem. Sunset is at 7.30 pm.

Trap site: An extensive area of ancient, broad-leaved woodland, that is almost completely un-recorded. By kind permission of the national Trust.