Mothursday Night

The days in May suddenly seem to get incredibly very long as the number of evening ecology surveys peaks, yet there never seems to be enough hours in the day! 

On Thursday 16th we had our first moth trap session of the year, but a cold start to the month has meant very poor results in moth traps for surveyors everywhere. Jacob Everitt is the Senior Countrsyide Warden for Horsham District Council, and has been surveying moths here at Gatwick since 2013. This evening he left nothing to chance, bringing along 3 different types of moth trap.

We set up at the base of the River Mole environment (or noise) bund, which extends about 1km along the River Mole. The bund is a mix of scrub and seeded wildflower grassland, and is undisturbed due to the chainlink fence along the base and around the perimeter of Pond M. We set up three traps at the end closest to Brockley Wood.

As expected, things were very quiet, and so we played the patient game of not-looking-directly-at-the mercury-vapour-bulb, while waiting for the first of our lepidopteran light-addicts to show up.

Jake and his assistant Ian

As it got darker, the insect activity picked up around the lights, which initially were small flies and non-biting midges. On one of the checks at around 10pm, we swept a torch around the surrounding grassland and were surprised to see this big beauty quietly roosting in the grass...

Lime Hawkmoth

Soon there were a few moths bouncing around the light, and this lovely Pebble Prominent was again one of the larger species to show up.

Cardboard egg boxes inside the trap allow moths to safely perch or hide away 

At around 11pm it had cooled down to 9 degrees with no sign of anything else on the wing, so we decided to call it a night and count up our meagre catch.

The final list for the evening was a grand total of 8 species! Jake said this was actually a better result than most of his recent evenings.

• Common Swift = 2
• Green Carpet = 5
• Lime Hawk-moth = 1
• Pale Tussock = 2
• Pebble Prominent = 1
• Purple Bar = 1
• Monopis weaverella = 1
• Elchista argentella = 1

A few specimens which I photographed and released the next day...

Lime Hawk-moth (Mimas tiliae)

Pebble Prominent (Notodonta ziczac), warming up for take off

Pale Tussock (Pterostoma palpina)

Moth faces are ridiculously underrated, I mean would you just look at this....

Pale Tussock, ready for its close-up

Green Carpet (Colostygia pectinataria)

A tiny Elchista argentella

This beautiful ground beetle was also spotted as it dashed past one of the traps....

Carabus nemoralis

We also recorded a large bat while standing on the top of the environment bund, hawking over Pond M; is it a Noctule, or a Serotine perhaps? (The static noise is from my Batbox Duet).

Have I got orchids for you

I’m not so up to date with the latest on television trivia (you don't want me in your pub quiz team), so I only recently heard about Gatwick’s mention in an episode of Have I Got News For You, when mentioned in passing by some inquisitive airport staff and bemused conservationists.

I don't know of any particularly rare orchids in the local area, but if there were then it wouldn't be common knowledge anyhow as rare plants are kept safer that way.

Here's a rundown of three lovely species which are not especially rare, but still are very worth appreciating and can be regularly seen on our sites at Gatwick:

Early Purple Orchids (Orchis mascula) are in abundance within the River Mole woodlands, along the Sussex Border Path, near Povey Cross. They have now opened and are in full bloom, so to see this species in its glory you want to get out to the woods quickly!

Early Purple Orchid flowering spike

Basal leaves

Other niceties to be found along these woodland paths include species of summer-visiting birds such as Willow Warbler and Garden Warbler, a colony of rare Long-horned Bees, English Elms and the elusive White-letter Hairstreak Butterflies. It was reported that only a couple of decades ago we had Tree Sparrows here, but sadly no more.

Povey Cross walking route (grid reference TQ 26902 41970 marks the parking point)

River Mole woodlands footpath, west of Povey Cross

Common Spotted Orchids (Dactylorhiza fuchsia) tend to favour the open grasslands and woodland edges; the basal leaves are now happily popping up where the Gatwick Greenspace Partnership volunteers have been scything and raking in Goat Meadow.

Common Spotted Orchid flowering spike

Basal leaves

Bee Orchids (Ophrys apifera) are incredibly weird and wonderful, blooming in June and July. We have a few which pop up airside on the grass islands between the airfield roads. They really do mimic bees, and they may even be linked with our colony of rare Long-horned Bees, as apparently this is the species commonly deceived by the flower resulting in 'pseudocopulation'!

Bee Orchid flowering spike

Peter O'Connor aka anemoneprojectors from Stevenage, United Kingdom 

CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

If anyone has further records of orchids around the Gatwick area, feel free to drop me a line biodiversitygatwick@gmail.com.