Woodland Playground

Hello again. We thought you might like to see the completed woodland playground.

This is just where the moth trapping took place last week with Jon and Max from the CFZ.

Today the weather has been brighter and we are still really busy.

Today Ross and Greg have been moving Scratchy (the Russian Dwarf Hamster or Winter White as they are known) to a much bigger cage, so now Scratchy thinks he's living in a castle, with lots of rooms!!

Moth Trapping

Hello everyone. Whilst we have had dreadful weather for the last few days, today has really brightened up. This evening it is so calm and peaceful that Jon and Max from the CFZ (Centre for Fortean Zoology) have come down to do some moth trapping this evening. It really is great fun and you get to see some fantastic moths, which you never even knew existed!

Firstly the mercury vapour lamp, which attracts moths, was set up in our woodland area, near the wooden playground.

Then Greg mixed up treacle in warm water, and as you can see in the picture, he then used a paint brush to paint some on the trees near the moth trap, again to attract the moths. It wasn't long before the moths started to arrive in swarms. Max and Greg were busy catching them in the nets, they were then identified by Jon, and Rossi kept a notepad and recorded the times, species etc. Then each moth was photographed and released.

What a fantastic experience - unbelievable to see all the activity around the mercury vapour light.

The first moth to be caught was a Swallow Tail, followed by a Devon Carpet.

We'll give you a full report tomorrow night. But for now, we'll continue to watch and record the happenings of the night - this will no doubt go on into the early hours of tomorrow.

Thank you for reading our blog, we'll be back tomorrow.