Keith Brown

 Sadly, Keith, the Moth Group's President, died very recently at the age of 80.   The following tribute has been written by Malcolm Cotterill:

"Unknown to many of our members on account of a devastating stroke which incapacitated him 26 years ago, Keith was at the forefront of the Group from the days of its inception when the total membership was fewer than ten. Professionally Keith was a graduate pharmacist with his own business in Wincanton.   Like his life of active mothing, that, too, came to an end on account of his disabilities but his engagement with moths endured throughout his life.   A rugged determination kept him trapping in his garden and the lepidoptera of North Cheriton are better recorded than those anywhere else in our VC. He remained in the home he enjoyed with his four children and his wife, Sheila despite her untimely death some years ago - a bereavement which compounded his difficulties in coping with the demands of daily life.   Nevertheless, he battled on - clinging to the ambition of publishing an authoritative Moths of Somerset - until it became clear that technology had made such a prospect unrealistic.   A visit to our website shows the wisdom of that conclusion. So, largely unseen and unknown for so long, he passes as a model of commitment to a cause, doggedness in adversity and a refusal to concede anything to a cruel fate."   

AGM Reminder

This is to remind Members that the 2024 AGM will take place at 11.00 a.m on Saturday 9th March at Draycott Memorial Hall.

For further details, see the original website post on 17th January.

Moth Group 2024 AGM

Agenda for the AGM of the Somerset Moth Group to be held at Draycott Memorial Hall at 11.00 a.m. on Saturday 9th March 2024 at Latches Lane, Draycott, Somerset, BS27 3UE

1 Welcome and apologies for absence

2 Minutes of last AGM (22 February 2023)

3 Matters arising

4 Chairman’s report

5 Treasurer’s report

6 Election of Committee: nominations for officers and committee members

are invited.

7 Any other business

8 Date and time of the 2025 AGM to be advised.

The AGM will be followed by a presentation by Neale Mellersh – Moth Recorder’s report and highlights of the year.

Somerset & Bristol branch of Butterfly Conservation Members Social will follow.

Moth Group member are welcome to stay for this, with two relevant talks:

12.30 Fred Giles "Moth Trap designs for Avalon Marshes Projects"

1.30 - Rob Grimmond "The weird and wonderful world of moths"

Review of dataset and addition of 2022 records

The complete dataset for the 21st century has been reviewed and updated, and the website now shows records up to and including 2022. Some doubtful or undocumented records have been removed.   In some cases, changes to the species account will be made in due course.

Mike Ridge

It is with great sadness that we offer our condolences to the family of former Moth Group stalwart Mike Ridge, who died on 20th October in Lyme Regis. Mike undertook many moth nights throughout the county, mainly with Robin Clatworthy.

An obituary will be included in the next edition of the Newsletter, due to be published in January.

Launch of new Somerset Moth Group website

We are pleased to announce that our brand new Somerset Moths website is now live and available to access. It has taken a little while to get off the ground but we hope you find it valuable.

The website’s purpose is to document the moths of the two Vice Counties into which Somerset is divided, VC5 (South Somerset) and VC6 (North Somerset), with good quality photographs, distribution maps, phenology patterns and more.

The site is pretty much self-explanatory. It has:

- the facility to post latest sightings, with photos if required;

- the ability to browse by family or by the species most likely to be on the wing at certain times of the month;

- information on submitting data;

- individual species accounts, with photos, improved distribution maps and phenology and reporting rate charts (enabling you to see flight times and how many records were submitted in each year);

- links on the Home page to the Group’s Twitter account and Somerset Butterflies & Moths Facebook account; and

- the ability for us to post news and details of events.

The maps have data up to and including 2020. Records for 2021 will be added later in the year once all records have been processed and verified.

As you will see, we have been able to upload many high quality photos but there are still gaps, either for an adult of a species, leaf-mine or larvae. If you have a good quality image that you think might be suitable, please email it somersetmothgroup@gmail.com.

One departure from the old website is the process for submitting sightings. To keep the site as secure and accurate as possible, we are not issuing passwords to Members to access the site. Once an entry has been submitted, it will be uploaded to the site in due course.

As part of ongoing development of the site, we are hoping to add more statistical information in the future.

We owe a great deal of thanks to Alex Perry for designing the new website, development of which has gone very smoothly. I’d also like to thank the rest of the Moth Group Committee for their help in the development of the website and everyone who has uploaded photos.

If you are not a member of the Somerset Moth Group, please join us to help with running costs and receive our twice yearly Newsletter with lots of information about moths and mothing in Somerset. For details of membership, go to https://www.somersetmoths.org/about

We hope you enjoy the site!