Monthly meeting 12th February 2009

A moth trap is run at all monthly meetings weather permitting. We have never had a meeting where the MV light has not been out during the evening and this evening was no different although it was put out with more hope than anticipation. We did in fact have a catch. A single Chestnut arrived as people were packing up ready to go home.

A cold evening with some snow falling in advance of the meeting and although this cleared fairly quickly it remained cold throughout.

An excellent turnout considering the weather with 16 members braving the cold and snow. Welcome to new member Kelly and welcome back Susan.

The evening started with our usual round the table "show and tell" and although most members had not recorded many species if any during the month there was still lots of items to talk about

Roger Spring Usher, Common Quaker, Winter Moth, Pale Brindled Beauty were some of the moths recorded and an exhibit showing the range of variation in some species was also passed round the table.

Richard Nothing to report.

Mark The only reported sighting was of a Pale Brindled Beauty on the building at work, although he did notice a micro flying in the room during the meeting.

Grahame Grahame and some other members went to the Moth Recorders Conference in Birmingham on the 31st January. He gave a brief outline of some of the talks to the members present and said he felt it was worth attending.

Once again volunteers are required to man the BMG/UTB BC stall at "Royal Berkshire Show" on the 19th and 20th September if you have an hour or two to spare on either day and would like to help out can you let Grahame know.

Martin Harvey Martin gave a brief talk on using websites to record and describe moths. He also gave an update on the new Berkshire Moth Group website which he is working on.

Later in the evening he gave a talk explaining what is required for the recording of the more difficult, unusual, and out of flight period moth species. Most moths are fairly easy to identify there are some however that require more than a cursory glance to identify, and due to climate change there maybe species that are flying later or earlier in the season.

For these species confirmation from more than one person, a photograph or even genitalia examination may be required. If you can supply any of this extra confirmation please put a note to that effect on MapMate when entering your records. He then put forward some suggestions on possible resources that we could develop

(1) A list of people that could/would help with preserving voucher specimens ie setting specimens.

(2) Are there members that could do genitalia dissections.

(3) Do we need to set up rarities committee.

(4) Would a workshop on setting specimens be benificial

and do we need a formal policy when vouchers are required. e.g when adding new species to county list? when only a single sighting has been recorded?

Roy No recording done in the last month. The website has been updated with a single colour backgroundand a number of items have been taken off the site. The website itself has grown to take up 98% of allocated space so old information has had to be deleted to allow the site to keep operating until Martin's new site is ready.

Les Has now finished his report on the 5 Year Macro Moth Review and a copy will be made available for members to read. He is now working on a new project "Population Trends in the Macro Moths". He also put forward ideaas for getting school children interested in moths, various members had suggestions of how this could be done. Les will no doubt be following this up during the coming months. He had also brought along a new book by Chris Manley entitled "British Moths and Butterflies" . The cost is between £14.79 plus postage to £19.99 plus postage on Amazon. Other outlets have it at various other prices. Below is a review from Amazon.

Review by T.A. Box

Following Chris's previous book, the Moths of Trigon, this new book has been eagerly anticipated, and I have not been disappointed. Most of the photos are excellent: clear, good colour definition, and being live insects, are shown in natural poses. The text is concise, giving B & F number, name and latin name, size, status, flight time and broad distribution and habitat, and any simple diagnostic feature, followed by foodplant, and finally with the photographers initials. For example, the entry for 1676 Mocha Cyclophona annularia reads "24mm Nb. May-Jun, Jul-Aug. Very local in southern England in mature maple woods. Unmistakeable moth with yellow and chocolate markings. FP Field Maple PGC". The selection of macros covered is fairly arbitrary, with photos of some species which have been recorded only once or twice i.e. Lorimer's Rustic, but there is no photo of the regular form of Map-winged Swift. The book itself, a paperback, is well produced, and easy to use, with a full index, and a list of larval foodplants. It is particularly pleasing to see a collection of photographs of the more common micros, and I am sure this will be an invaluable aid to those of us who have trouble remembering the latin names of some of these species. In some ways although fulfilling much of what it set out to do, it could have gone one step further; there are plenty of books with photos of butterflies, and the small number of caterpillar and egg photos are of limited use, but to have had rather more micro photos would have been great - an opportunity missed. I for one will have two copies, one for my bookshelf, and one for a quick reference guide for those micros, and would thoroughly recommend this as a very useful addition to your library.