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Moth Trap in the NZ garden
First Night
19 November 2016
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Finally the rain stopped and we had a dry evening for the first time on arriving in New Zealand.
The trap was put out with the Prolite 25W Black Light bulb and stayed on all night. There was a breezy wind but it was a bit warmer than when we arrived with a low of 14oC.
The trap was place just outside the property and was on from sunset to sunrise.
So what did we get? All in all for a first try it was quite a success. With well over 60 moths of some 14 different species. One that was very prominent was the Orocrambus spp.
However armed with only a small ID book for New Zealand Moths and Butterflies, (Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand by Hoare and Ball) and a web site
that keeps crashing due to script errors it is already obvious that ID will be an ongoing problem.
By mid-morning I had managed to ID only four of the moths but felt sure that most of the others collected will be identifiable later as the day goes on and I get some food in!
I am very happy if any id's are corrected as these are all new to me.
At least the trap worked and in fact I am really please with its performance. It is a bit of a struggle to get all the moths out but that just means I have to spend a bit more time with the moths. It is so lightweight that it does need to be fixed down at night or if hung up maybe weighted so that it does not bang about in the wind.
Butterflies seen so far only include what one would expect Monarchs and Small Whites. There are plenty of large Monarch caterpillars on the Swan Plants near us so I will be putting some of those in a net cage soon so that we can monitor their hatching.
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