O. Gothica and early moths

[Ian Thirlwell]

Alan5319 at aol.com wrote in message <849a724b.24406c40 at aol.com>...
>Hi Ian,
>
>With reference to the O. gothica colour; I was referring to the red - brown
>form that stops short of ad gothicina. If you have Skinner, Plate 31, 9 and
>10 illustrate the difference.
>
>We had a wild night in the trap last night - Thursday Night. There are over
>90 moths in there. This is a very high total for this time of the year. The
>notable oddity was a female  Pavonia pavonia (Emperor Moth). Not only is
this
>early but it is certainly a first for our trap. There are many records for
>Co. Durham but none from this area, it always nice to see something new.
>
>The other thing of note was the number of diptera in the trap. It would not
>be an exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of thousands.
>
>Scraping them together on the tray we ended up with a pile the was 10mm
deep
>x 260mm long x 70 mm wide. This is a total volume of 182,000 cu. mm.
>
>Each fly is very approximately.25 cu mm, this suggests some 546,000 of the
>wee beasts. This is a very rough calculation but it will have to suffice as
>we have no intention of counting them.
>
>Alan & Jeri Coates
>

Hi Alan,

 I haven't seen that "form" in my trap. Skinner's comment (Inverness-shire)
against no. 10 would seem to indicate it is a more northerly variety so
probably
not to be expected here in the balmy south. His text also implies that.

Thursday was a good night here too, though in my particular locality not as
good
as elsewhere. I didn't have huge numbers, but did get 15 species, which is
reasonable here for the time of year. Seven of those were micros.

Best for me was Panolis flammea, new to the trap & locally not at all
common.

Plenty of diptera too, but thank goodness not as many as you.

Ian