Prior to our visit there were only four moth species on the island list in the National Moth Recording Scheme: six-spot burnet, transparent burnet, silver Y and belted beauty. We knew of no previous moth trapping.

We trapped every night (6 nights) with varying combinations of a Robinson MV trap and two ridged actinic traps and were able to cover eight 1km squares, including all four 10km squares. The weather was excellent all week.

By the end of the week we had added 51 new macro-moth species to the Muck list and significantly increased the counts for the poorest recorded 10km squares: NM37 - now 18 species; NM38 - now 16 species. Most were common species except the scarce (Nb) scotch annulet. The highlight was to record a new species for the Small Isles list, a canary shouldered thorn.

We have since discovered some trapping was carried out between 1977-1988 by Dr R.M.Dobson, University of Glasgow and are trying to get a copy of his article that was published in The Glasgow Naturalist in 1990, so we can add his records to the National Database.