Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
1. Pack materials neatly and double-check against your packing list before leaving.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
2. Site selection is the most important and challenging step, often resulting in indecisiveness and angry arguments.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
3. Having selected an appropriate site, prepare it carefully, removing any sprouts and roots that might upset the trays.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
4. After careful site smoothing, unpack your materials.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
5. We put the no-see-um netting screen up first.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
6. Tie one end as close to the base of the tree as possible and then tie the other, pulling the screen taut.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
7. Tie the bottom twine as low on the anchor tree as possible.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
8. Now tie the top, using the same procedure.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
9. Okay, it looks pretty good, but the bottom is still a little high. We'll fix that in a minute.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
10. Now unfurl the canopy. The canopy obviously keeps rain out of the trays, but it also serves an important function as a barrier to insects trying to fly over the screen, causing them to drop, and enhancing recovery.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
11. The canopy is attached at six points, two at the middle and the four corners. Tie off the middle ones first.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
12. Bring a lot of twine.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
13. The twine is attached to the canopy by holes through several layers of duct tape reinforcement.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
14. Now set your cheap "mud pans" in a row under the screen. You can use any kind of shallow portable tray, but lightweight and maximum surface area are the main considerations.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
15. NO, we are not using ethanol. We mixed our solution of 50:50 propylene glycol:water with a bit of dish soap into a five gallon alcohol carboy. You need one gallon of liquid per trap. NEVER, EVER, use dangerously toxic ethylene glycol.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
16. Notice the use of the handy forest bricks on the tie offs to slightly lower the bottom of the screen.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
17. You just need about an inch of fluid in each tray, but you can use more. If the trays are level, you will be much happier with the results. We used a big stick on the other tie off to lower it.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
18. And there you have it, an aesthetically pleasing flight intercept trap.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
19. It started capturing students immediately!
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
20. Fastforward about 4 weeks. We had serviced it once, so this is our second recovery of specimens.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
21. The individual trays may not look too impressive, but when you recover from 14 trays, the specimens and diversity really add up!
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
22. We use fine mesh aquarium nets ("brine shrimp nets") to strain the fluid and extract the insects. You can recycle the preservative as long as it has not too diluted. We replenished the prop. glycol on this trip.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
23. Everything ends up in the net and your trays are clean and ready for another interval.
Carlton Astronomy and Entomology:
24. We were lazy and just put the net with the sample from the two traps into a zip. In the lab we will preserve everything in 95% ethanol, then sort the specimens in lab and they will go in the students' taxonomy collection.