Just 3 moths this morning.

Friday 18th November 2022.

Two Beautiful Plume moths were attracted to the moth box.

I had the moth box overnight and I am starting to wonder if it is really worth putting it on now. Not with the recent extortionate high costs for using electricity, but simply for the lack of moths turning up now. I do know that a lot of people decide to call it a day as Winter approaches, unless they live in the countryside or in and around woodland. The forecast overnight was clear and cloudless and temperatures dropping to well under double-figures. 

This Light Brown Apple Moth made up the rest of the moths.

There was talk of a meteorite shower in the early hours of the morning, but I wasn't prepared to wait until then and so I had a quick look outside in the garden to check the sky - nothing! There was also nothing around the moth box either, but at least 3 Redwing were heard calling as they passed high invisibly overhead. 

This beautiful Barn Owl was photographed over the fields at Southmoor yesterday by Graeme Loader. There has been no sign this week of the Short-eared Owl being reported unfortunately here.

This morning, a check of the moth box produced just the three moths: 2 Beautiful Plume and a Light Brown Apple Moth. I shall have a good think on whether or not to put the moth box in hibernation till March. While checking the moth box, a Wren was heard ‘churring’ near the garden and eventually, the little bird popped into the back of my garden, perched up briefly in my Buddleia tree and had a quick preen, before flying off over the gardens. The House Sparrows are demolishing my sunflower hearts within the feeder and will probably have to be topped up again by Monday!

Fairly quiet in Hampshire today, though a Black Brant (are American / Canadian race of Brent Goose) was on Farlington Marshes today and an unusual claim of a Grasshopper Warbler ‘reeling’ in bushes by the Hayling Oyster Beds, was intriguing. The Black-necked Grebe and a Great Northern Diver were within Langstone Harbour nearby. In West Sussex, a Red-necked Grebe passed Selsey Bill this morning and 2 Little Gulls and a juvenile Arctic Tern were off Medmerry RSPB Reserve.