Atlas of Britain and Ireland's Larger Moths - Book Review

This month saw the publication of the long awaited Atlas of Britain and Ireland's Larger Moths. This mighty tome is published by Pisces  The publications is curated by a range of top entomologists and supported by all the local record centres and county recorders, produced by Butterfly Conservation and Moths Ireland.

The atlas contains a detailed account of the recording, analysis and layout of the distribution maps and trends. The results are complex and look at species richness and long-term distribution and abundance trends. These is an extensive section on causes of distribution changes and of conservation measures.

The species accounts cover every major larger moth species, this amounts to 893 species. Each have a colour photo of the moth in question and a graphic of the flight period.
The maps cover all of the UK and Ireland and clearly shows three levels of temporal information, pre-1970s, 1970-1999 and 2000 on wards. This enables the reader to identify distribution and range ranges over the last fifty years.

I have bought this volume to aid in my growing foray into Moth recording. Alongside identification guides it gives a useful perspective on the distribution and rarity of the species I am likely to discover.

The writing style is functional and informative and the layout excellent. The maps are clear and the photographs are exceptional. The paper quality is is strong gloss, bringing clarity to the images and longevity. The book is hard back with solid quality binding.

This is a first rate publication for any nature lover.

Priced at £38.50 it is available from all good book shops.

Antlers on the bridge

I have recently purchased a new brand of wildlife trail camera. I usually use Bushnell exclusive and have a couple of Ltl Acorns but decided to try out the Browning. There is a fallen tree across a brook that has silted up creating a little bridge across for all sorts of animals to use. I decided to place the camera here to look at the passage of mammals and get a better look at individuals that use the area.

The number of Roe Deer sightings have increased in the past year or so and there seems to be a small herd of perhaps 4 individuals. I have caught fleeting glimpses of these deer in the distance, they always see me before I see them and move away quickly in typical bounding gait flashing their white rumps at me.

Last year I identified a pregnant female and later a fawn and so I know that the breed in the area. With this new camera I m starting to get an idea of the population. In the clip below we have a fine example of a Roe Deer buck.

The individual seen appears to be a buck in his prime. He has a set of fine antlers which you can see have the standard 3 points and is still covered in velvet.

Roe Deer are generally solitary but form small groups in the winter and the Buck is accompanied by a smaller buck whose antlers only have one point, one of which is strangely longer than the other.

In future weeks I hope to bring you some shots of Roe Deer does as a comparison. Whilst the does are probably still in a group at the moment the eggs that were fertilised in the rut in July/August will have implanted in January. This means the females are likely pregnant in May/June.