Not a bad morning at Grafham Water. Red-crested Pochard popped up just as I was leaving. 3rd Winter Casp and the 2 Bewick's also. All at Valley Creek Cambs Bird Club

Still fairly quiet here in terms of moth numbers, but this Black-spotted Chestnut made up for it! Only other moth was a Pale Brindled Beauty Harpenden, VC20, 24/01/2024

NEW PAPER: Ever wondered why insects fly in all sorts of crazy patterns around lights at night? So did we! We set about recording flying insects to work out what's going on. I'll summarise what we found in this 🧵. Spoiler: We don't think they confuse lights with the moon.

Slowing things down for #BritishScienceWeek...watch an oak beauty moth take flight at 9300fps (that's 310x slower than real life!) The high-tech camera is allowing our scientists to analyse insect flight behaviour and the spread of fungal pathogens #BSW24 #highspeedcamera #moth

Nice to see 8 Little Ringed Plovers at Grafham Water today. Also a Yellow Wagtail and a White Wagtail

Very pleased to say that I submitted my masters' thesis today which focused on the Behavioural impacts of pulsed Artificial Light at Night on our nocturnal moths! This self-led project taught me a lot scientifically and it was great to learn even more about moths and ALAN! 🦋💡

17 MILLION insects migrate through a 30m Pyrenean mountain pass every autumn! They fly through the mountains on their remarkable journeys from northern Europe (including the UK) into Spain and beyond for the winter! Our new paper is out right now: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.10… 🧵

A nice invert trip around Cornwall yesterday resulted in Scarce Blue-tailed Damselflies and Small Red Damselflies, followed by Lunar Hornet Moth, Six-belted Clearwing and Thrift Clearwings with Matthew Broadbent.

First time trapping in a few weeks due to weather, but decent numbers. C. conspicuella nfm, and a very fresh Kent Black Arches the highlights. 13 Diamond-back Moths, 3 Silver Y on the migrant front. 12/07/2024, VC20

This lovely Red-tipped Clearwing was nice to see during my lunch break. A new species for me!

A couple of Raspberry Clearwings to a Yellow-legged lure today, will have to try again for the intended clearwing! Herts, 28/07/24

Stopped by Silverlake for the Scarlet Darters - a great site! Also saw 4 Lesser Emperors (3m, 1f) and 1 Southern Migrant Hawker (1m)

Two long overdue patch tick at Stithians this evening - Barnacle Goose and 3 LRPs take my uni 10km radius list to 218! Also 4 Wood Sands present and showing well from Stuart Hutchings Hide Elliott Cornelius Cornwall Birds

A male Southern Migrant Hawker at Pennan's Pool displayed nicely this morning. Plenty of other nice Odonata too. Great to catch up with Matthew Broadbent Cornwall, 01/08/24

Porthgwarra 06:30-14:30 with @StuBearhop, Elliott Cornelius and Humphrey Keeper Cory's 508 Great Shear 3 Balearic 10 Sooty 7 Sabine's Gull 1 adult Long-tailed Skua 1 adult Bonxie 3 Arctic skua 5 Euro Storm Petrel 6 Cornwall Birds (1/2)

Porthgwarra totals 05:45 - 18:00 (clicker counted by Steve Rogers until 13:45 and myself subsequently) Cory’s Shearwater 1339 Great Shearwater 9 Sooty Shearwater 93 Balearic Shearwater 21 Euro Stormy 94 Bonxie 3 Long-tailed Skua 1 Arctic Skua 4 Wilson’s Petrel 2 Cornwall Birds

Play our new find-the-harvester game! By playing you'll be helping us to understand the weird and wonderful diversity in harvester colouration visual-ecology.com/harvesters/ University of Exeter CEC

Always a nice start to the day when you're looking at a Clifden. Another recent highlight was a Plumed Fan-foot, look at those palps! VC20, 25/09/2024

Palpita vitrealis this morning was nice. Been a while since I've had a proper migrant here! Yesterday's moth highlight was a Hawfinch flying over whilst checking the trap. VC20, 25/10/2024

We find that even short pulses of light impact moth flight behaviour! Particularly when the lights are blue/white like those blinding modern car headlights 🚗💡 Very exciting to see my first ever paper published! Check it out doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2…!