Well,last night put out the usual 3 Heath Moth traps on my balconies at Duquesa Fairways.Weather conditions appeared pretty good as the wind abated,the only downside was that it was getting much cooler now.Well alarm went off at right time at last so went out on front balcony overlooking the golf course expecting plenty of moths in the trap.I was a bit dismayed,just 2 moths sitting outside on the curtain and 1 only in the trap.Then I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye.It was as I feared,a dastardly Moorish Gecko.On this balcony in particular I have had 1 under the trap and another in the trap itself,and I managed to catch them and relocate them to another urbanisation down the road.During this summer 3 more have gone that way.This gecko had a free breakfast and lunch on the moths.I failed to catch it but will have another go if its around tomorrow morning .Dont get me wrong though,I love this superb Geckoo.I have managed to photograph them close up and they are astoundingly beautiful.Lets face it ,if I didnt trap the moths then they would not get eaten by any predators.Fortunately the other 2 traps caught a few so had 19 moths comprising 13 species.
6 of the catch were as usual the most common Spodoptera cilium ,Dark Mottled Willow,plus 2 Mniotype occidentalis.,plus another Eublemma parva,Small Marbled
Female Square spot Rustic Xestia xanthographa
As an aside UK lepidopterists are keen weather watchers,especially for wind direction.I use the same weather site as them as N.African moths can reach my area with the right wind direction. The site we all use is Ventusky.I follow with great interest the UK mothing sites to see what migrants they are trapping as their catches often contain the same species as mine on the same night!!
Doc.B's Nature Blog 
Leave a comment