Moth trapping in October 2019 By the end of October in Scotland, moths are getting a bit thin on the ground. Nevertheless those that are around are beautiful and worth seeking out on milder nights. Which is what I did. How did my catch on the Estate at the end of October 2019 compare with …
Tag: moth
William Evans’ Collection
If you had some space to display a small selection of moths from your local area, which species would you choose? The most colourful? Your favourites? The commonest? Drawers of insect specimens A selection of East Lothian moths Following a brief visit last year which I documented in a previous blog, I recently had the …
Digitising Alice’s Notebooks
I have completed the transfer of the moth lists in Alice's notebooks to a spreadsheet. Her notebook records have been digitised! This might sound rather dull, but it means these records are now in a format where they can be verified and submitted to the National Moth Recording Scheme. Here they will join millions of …
Early moths
Which moths did Alice find out and about in East Lothian in January, and are they still to be found in 2020? In the museum's box file containing her diary is a small soft-backed notebook. Each page has been devoted to a month of the year and lists some species of moth to look out …
2019 – Lessons learned
A year ago, as I set out to explore the life of Alice Balfour and her moths, I didn't give much thought to what I might find or where it might lead. I wanted to discover more about the moths she encountered and was interested to learn more about the pursuit of natural history in …
County Moth Recorder
December. There are moths to be found, but not much in the way of variety or surprises and the disappointment of finding nothing at all is quite high. Alice has very few records from December or January. In December she occasionally records Mottled Umber and Winter Moth and during January Pale-Brindled Beauty also appears. Much …
Expert Opinion
Some of the problems with the small nondescript moths known as Pugs were described in an earlier post, 'Pug Enigmas'. I was struggling to identify the Pugs I was catching in my traps, as happens every summer, but I was also struggling to locate Alice's Pug specimens in the museum collections. They are not in …
Equinox
Equinox. Equal night. The date when day length and night length are equal? Actually not quite for us in the UK. It is the point in time when the position of the sun is directly above the celestial equator. This year the autumnal equinox was 0850h on 23rd September, when we in East Lothian were …
Over the Hill
Although she doesn't appear to have strayed much beyond her corner of East Lothian, Alice's moth hunting endeavours were not confined to Whittingehame. Her specimens and notebooks indicate a few favourite haunts beyond the Estate, perhaps based on ease of access, knowing the landowner or promise of exciting discovery (considerations which are all still relevant …
Rediscovering the moths of Whittingehame 