If you’re a regular visitor to our blog or Facebook pages you’ll know we’re all a bit moth-daft at Fairburn Ings! We’ve been popping out our trusty moth trap for many years; we all just love pouring over the box in the morning (like in the photo below!) to see what beautiful, fluttery critters we’ve captured. So there was much excitement in the office last week when our new moth trap arrived. There’s nothing wrong with our old trap, it’s still shining away on an evening, and remains completely irresistible to moths (they fly into the big, bright light bulb and fall into the trap box. Don’t worry - they’re completely unharmed! We release them all onto the reserve the following day), it’s just that it runs off of mains electricity, which means it has to be tethered via an electric cable to the Visitor Centre at all times. Our new moth trap runs off a battery, so we can put it out and about anywhere on the reserve. This actually makes a huge difference to our moth trapping at Fairburn Ings. Some moths are incredibly fussy about where they set up home, and won’t venture far from their favoured habitat. This is what makes our new portable moth trap so exciting! We’ve already identified some “new” moths for the reserve, just by placing the trap in one of our reedbeds and up on our heathland. We have probably been giving these moths a home for years, it’s just we were never going to see them in a moth trap located at the Visitor Centre. Hopefully there’s a few more new moths to come!
If you want to see some of our lovely moths for yourself then why not come along to one of our Meet the Moths or Moth Night events? Have a look on our website for details. We promise to dispel the myth that all moths are small, brown and boring, and introduce you to some wonderfully names moths like the True Lover’s Knot, Ruby Tiger, Snout, or aptly named Spectacle, which looks like it’s wearing a tiny pair of glasses.