Targets

You always open yourself up to failure and are on a hiding to nothing when announcing a project or admitting to setting targets. Such is this post.

I have a couple of weeks off work and am setting aside a handful of days to go looking for specific species - here they are:

Moths
Wood Tiger, Narrow-bordered Bee-hawk, Cistus Forester, Scarce Forester, The Forester and possibly Black-veined Moth.
All would be lifers. I have sites for them all but they are somewhat weather dependent, all being day-flyers. This weekend looks the best bet for these as the longer term weather forecast is unsettled. The other spanner in the works is the late season. Are the forester species on the wing yet? Has the late spring affected the numbers of Wood Tigers and Bee-hawks? No doubt I'll find out soon enough. Also I will be giving my newly purchased clearwing pheremones an airing - I have had a few half-hearted attempts already, but the weather has not been ideal and, of course, flight emergence may have been delayed. I have only recorded four clearwing species before, so there are plenty more to hunt down.

Plants
Bastard Balm, Wild Gladiolus
Both have evaded me in the past, but I have sites (New Forest area). In fact , there are a handful of less showy species in this area that I still have yet to see, so I could fill my botanical boots, so to speak. Not so weather dependent but, as with the moths, what has the cold spring done to flowering times and numbers?.

Now just sit back and watch me fail...