Wednesday night in Washington

3/21/07

    Michael and I took a last-minute trip to the farm on Wed night. They were heading back to Florida the next day, and I wanted to get some collecting time in before he left.
    It was getting dark and we were in such a rush that I broke one of my 18" Blacklight bulbs while loading the car. I think it was about 9:00 before we made it out of the driveway.
    Now, this is the month of March, and neither of us expected to see much of anything. In my haste I forgot the clips I use to attach the sheet to the poles and forgot containers! We arrived rather late and scrambled to setup in the dark. We lit one black light and my MV rig and pretty soon we had company. We quickly found many C. scrutator, a few C. calidum, two giant water bugs and a big luna moth. We also had tons of June beetles and a fly that seemed to be a wasp mimic.
    We had a great time (despite feeling like crud the next day at work) and plan to do this again soon. It looks like it will be a good collecting year.

Steven