A relentless busy week but with some good tangible progress. I did five hours at the Farmlands today- finally mustering up the energy to go to the Bedddington Lane entrance and go through sign in process. Viridor have been making good progress with the restoration at the farmlands with the wet grassland habitat coming along well, the hides are now in place and connected to the permissive path , the fencing and tree planting along the cycle ways is really coming along and the enclosures and maintenance of the southern mound is well developed. The last landfill cell has now been capped and is ready for restoration.
On our side of the reserve, the side that Viridor/Council are trying to prevent us from developing so that they can use the nature reserve to promote their incinerator, things are not going so well as we missed a deadline for a £97,000 funding bid as the council as usual failed to provide the necessary support. This week we did some maintenance work on the Hackbridge entrance and also helped out the Social Orchards project- not a lot more we can do while Viridor and the Council conspire agaisnt the local community.
The big news of the week is a brand new Robinson's Moth Trap with MV and Actinic conversions. After years of my safari trap and small Heath Trap, I decided to finally go pro.
The new hide over looking the Wet Grassland
The Wet Grassland area
Wet Grassland area looking east
The Southern Mound grassland and copse mosaic
The Beddington Farmlands entrance at Hackbridge after a Little Oak makeover (above and below)
The Social Orchards Project has fallen behind so we spent Friday strimming around the trees to reduce the competition on the establishing trees
Pale Water Venner, Donacaula forticella (above and below). A first for the farmlands I do believe. A local species, a reed bed specialist
Bordered Sallow- the second for the farmlands
Cock's Head Bell, Zeiraphera isertana (I think)- if so the second for the farmlands
Still working on this one Pexicopia malvella- thanks Billy!
Heart and Club (above) and Heart and Dart (below) showing the different diagnostic eye brow pattern
Painted Lady
New Robinson's Trap
Couldn't fit the new trap on the Window sill so I tried just hanging the actinic unit at the window to see if it would increase the catch in the safari trap. It didn't work and actually reduced the catch in the safari and all the moths and insects were scattered around the room. Will try something else tonight.
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