Hello Everyone, Whilst in recent years the recording of moths has been carried out diligently by many volunteers in the County, it has not always been clear as to where your records should be sent – well at that is about to change as we enter 2024!
Both Tony Davison (tony.davison@btinternet.com) and Steve Thorpe (ornithom@hotmail.com) have, along with others, created a Moth Team Recorder Group who verify records that have been sent to them as a result of sightings being entered onto iRecord or onto the National Moth Recording Scheme Online, which interfaces with iRecord, both of which have been approved and are run by Butterfly Conservation. If you have any difficulty in accessing either of the above schemes to enter your moth records, or have any queries, then please contact Tony or Steve direct.
To give you some idea on the species of moths that have already been recorded in the County then have a look at the following links :-
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQyaVTO8wTZgddVjth-Q4VSC8tmgwQkkX0z8ubY5HtniNdXqUiE-1GIfzieNWhMgS2TY0CwQiFLU51q/pubhtml for the Macro moths (currently 570 species)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR-3P1A1tN3jI0jPETd9QK-DLbYGJKT5xNz8KP8jRsN6XGi9bd6dFGSXgMcg9MtY2wFYYOJak-eDbaR/pubhtml for the Micro moths (currently 866 species!)
The above will give you an insight into the huge task that is involved in verifying and inputting moth data into the National Recording Scheme – it is for certain that I will continue to verify and input just the butterflies in Derbyshire, which in 2023 amounted to over 44,000 records thanks to your brilliant efforts over the year.
Finishing off the 2023 butterfly sightings, Alan Kitchen informs me that he saw a Red Admiral under a window sill outside his Matlock home on the morning of Christmas Day and by 3 pm it had flown off to find somewhere else to hibernate! It is no surprise therefore that 2024 has started with another Red Admiral sighting – this time seen on the 6th of January in the VC57 part of Sheffield by Rupert Dell.
A Happy and Healthy New Year to you all.
December 23 – Derbyshire Moth Bulletin
