Creatures of the night

Most of the day was spent at King's Dyke Nature Reserve, recording plants and insects for Chris Packham's UK Bioblitz. It was hot work, but Pete and I managed to cover quite a lot of the reserve in the allotted time, even though we rather foolishly left our lunch back at the car so had to survive on water. 

We left about half past five to head home for some food and to input all our results, before returning at dusk to help with moth trapping. The sheer number of insects, mostly non-biting midges, buzzing round the moth trap was incredible. It was also interesting to see the flight paths, illuminated by the strobe effect of the mercury vapour lamp. When viewed at 100% you can clearly pick out different species based on the  trails.