Garden Moth Scheme - Summary 2007

Please could we ask any visitor/member who has downloaded or printed the GMS 2007 results, before 1st April 2008, to please download/print it again as there was an issue with the figures. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Garden Moth Scheme in Kent

The Garden Moth Scheme [GMS] is an easy way to quickly see what is happening to the common species.   A spreadsheet with some 200 common and easy to identify species is used to log how many moths of each species are seen on Friday nights during the main season, March to November.  Every nine weeks the data is forwarded by recorders and a newsletter is produced summarising the data received from various parts of the country.

The data has shown us that the recorders in the West Midlands get off to an early start, some weeks ahead of our moths appearing, an effect of the warm Gulf Stream as opposed to the cold North Sea perhaps. Overall there have been some very worrying trends observed. It is the speed of the reporting that makes the GMS so useful and because it is garden based most recorders can join in.

The Table shows the records received from the participants in Surrey and Kent and the order of the columns reflects the West to East pattern of the grid references.

Do have a look at the figures and compare with your own, but do remember these were from Friday only not every night. There are also geological features to take into account, many gardens were on chalk other on heaths, some on clay. The location of the garden and the garden itself make a difference as does the type of bulb used to attract the moths.

An advisory note is issued to explain how to fill the spreadsheet in so the computer database can understand what you are telling it.

If you would like to have a go do contact us. You do not have to do all 36 Fridays after all you may go to see butterflies abroad for a bit! The boffins who study the data can cope with a few missing weeks in the same way that the summertime butterfly transects can still be useful even if weeks are missed.

If you have spotted something about these records that interests you do let us know what it is. We were intrigued that some of the common species were not seen at all in either county but that was probably the year which by all accounts here in the South East was poor, dire or dreadful depending on the results of each recorder. Certainly reports of counts being 30% down on the previous year are not unusual, and that affects how many species they could record. We will have to wait for the Kent 2007 Report to see what the overall effect of the weather was. GMS alerted us the looming problem well before any general feel became known and this report is available to you maybe a year ahead of the Kent 2007 Report being published.

Please select a report from the list below:

The reports are in PDF (Adobe) format. To view or download them you will require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have the reader installed on your pc please click on the image below to download it for free.

To save a report to you PC right click on the PDF icon and choose the option "Save Target As"

Garden Moths Scheme 2007 Summary & Results (75KB)