We have seen some great recording activity in 2024, particularly considering how changeable and sometimes unsuitable the weather has been for recording of many taxonomic groups and just earlier in this week we received our 100,000th record through Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal. The 100,000th record was submitted by Tina Aughney and was for Clouded Border (Lomaspilis marginata) a species of moth and it was recorded from Drumheel, Co. Cavan on the 29/07/2024 through Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal.
When informed of the 100,000th records, Tina Aughney gave us some great details about her interest in recording and in particular moth trapping.
I was delighted to receive an email from Oisín Duffy (National Biodiversity Data Centre) that one of my moth records marked the 100,000th milestone for 2024. This was a Clouded Border (Lomaspilis marginata), trapped in my garden using a 20 watt (mains) Actinic trap.
This moth species is a regular visitor to my garden and I usually record one individual per trapping date when it is in season. It is a flighty moth and generally found either on vegetation close to the trap or gently sitting on the trap which means it can be easily disturbed when checking the trap’s contents.
Moth trapping is my little pleasure and break from the busy bat survey season and while I predominantly trap in my garden, I occasionally venture out with my portable moth traps. The recording system on the www.biodiveristyireland.ie makes this really straight-forward and encourages the competitive nature to do-well for your county.
I was kindly presented with my first moth trap by the Kildare Bat Group many years ago. But the trap laid unpacked in my office, primarily due to the fact that I was daunted by the idea of taking on this large species group. However, with the onset of the first lockdown during COVID-19 and while waiting for my “letters to travel” for work, I had those first few unseasonably warm weeks of March 2020 to step into the realm of moth trapping. And was it fun! To see the species list clock up quickly from just trapping in my own garden was a phenomenal buzz. But this would not have happened without the massive support and encouragement from the Moths Ireland community.
Surveys and Records Officer Oisín Duffy had this to say about the 100,000th record:
It’s always great to see the 100,000th record for the year come in through Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal, this was just over two weeks later than the 100,000th record for 2023. Much of this delay is likely due to recent poor weather conditions, but it is worth stating that the 100,000 records we have received have been submitted by 4,950 individual records, which fantastic to see. It is also great to see the 100,000th record being a moth as this was our third most heavily recorded taxonomic group in 2023 with over 31,000 records submitted.
A licence is required from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to operate a light trap in the Republic of Ireland. Moth trapping does not do any harm to the individual moths, it simply allows those running the light traps to record what species are present, after which point they are released. If you are in interested in Moth trapping in Ireland, MothsIreland are our validators for this group and more details can be found here: https://www.mothsireland.com/
Ireland’s Citizen Science portal is available to be used by anyone; if you see a species of note and are sure of its identification, please submit the details to https://records.biodiversityireland.ie/ so that the observation can be added to our national biodiversity database. This will allow us to continue to build the knowledge base on what species we have in Ireland and help us to better understand how they are distributed.
