Archives par mot-clé : week 1

Day 5 of Marchmont Malaise Trap Research


Our ‘Bug Researchers’ have been hard at work! Paving a way for bugs to get trapped is a tough job but someone’s got to do it!  Our team of insect researchers were busy making signs, monitoring and  guarding our trap. Things have been cooling off and we don’t seem to be getting as many samples as we had expected. Possibly 30-40 specimens. We are looking forward to next weeks collections!

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Friday 25 Sept in North Vancouver, BC

Today was another cool-ish, showery day (16 C was the high), but even with some of the blustery winds we’ve had, the Malaise Trap and its guy ropes are doing just fine. In fact, it looks as good as it did when we first set the tent-like structure up a week ago. This week generally has been cool at night (8-10 C), with a mix of sun and cloud, and occasional showers.

Interestingly, when you look at the volume from the outside of the nalgene bottle, it looks like there are only enough insects collected to (barely) cover the bottom of the container, but when you take the lid off and look directly inside you see there are dozens and dozens of very tiny insects, along with more usual sizes of flies and one wasp (which looks positively brobdinagian by comparison).

I would estimate individuals at 100 even though by volume they wouldn’t even register on the paper label, much less any of the graduated numbers.

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End of Week 1

The first week of our collection has been a success!  The trap remained intact all week and was not disturbed.  Mornings overall have been very cool, while our highs have been quite high.  Day temperatures are ranging between 5C in the morning and 20C in the late afternoon.  The winds blew in today, so we actually took the entire trap down for the weekend and will re-stake it on Monday morning.

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This is our total catch for week 1.

We’ll be back at it on Monday for week 2!