Monthly Meeting 12 November 2009

Thursday 12^th November 2009-11-22

Earley Interpretation Centre

The meeting opened as usual with tea, coffee, cakes and plenty of chat. A number of "old" friends had returned, as well as some new faces. We welcomed especially two young ladies who have just started courses at the University.

Martin Harvey had sent a letter in his absence, which Mark Calway read out to the group.

It was then the turn of the remainder of the group to report their activities and sightings since the October meeting. Several people reported seeing butterflies until the week before, particularly on Beijing Buddleia and Verbena Bonariensis. A couple of people said that they would taking cuttings or have taken cuttings from their Beijing Buddleias, if anyone would like some – this variety normally flowers later than the more common Davidii. Ian Clayton, who works on an estate in Sulhampstead reported being "inundated with Small Tortoiseshell".

There had not been much active trapping during the month, mainly because of the poor weather – though several people had trapped on the night of Monday 9^th – only for all to catch absolutely nothing! (Scribe: At least this did show some consistency!)

Ian Masters read a short passage from Baker’s book about William Holland, published towards the end of the 19^th century. It described Holland’s findings about the preference of moths to land on a dark background, which tied in with Les Finch’s analysis of moth trap positions throughout the 2009 summer season.

Roger Hayward told the meeting that one of his July records, which has been dissected, has been confirmed as Saltern Ear. Nick Asher reported that he had completed his first successful dissection following the training day (whereas Mark commented that he had not done as well!).

A highlight for Nick Percival were 20 Merveille du Jour – and "an unusual Snout" which he has sent to Peter Hall for dissection.

Roger suggested we should start searching Willow trees for swellings in the twigs – these may indicate the presence of the larvae of the Sallow Clearwing. Apparently, the moth only appears in even years – so this is the winter to start searching. He then went on to say that of all the swollen twigs collected, about 90% will be larvae of anything other than the Sallow Clearwing. Of the remaining 10%, only 1% may emerge. In 50 years, he has only managed to breed out one moth (of the desired species).

Grahame Hawker and Nick Percival were at an event at the Wolf Trust in Beenham the previous weekend, which had been very successful as well as interesting for them, especially when the wolves started howling at dusk.