I suspect that my first encounter with the wonderful world of Lepidoptera – butterflies & moths – might well have been a childhood reading of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Since then I have always admired butterflies; the splendidly colourful peacock nectaring on the wildflowers and the glorious silver-washed fritillary gliding powerfully through a sunshine-dappled woodland glade.
Silver-washed fritillary by Gareth Hughes
My love of the other half of the family – moths – is more recent. When I first started volunteering at Pulborough Brooks the warden, Pete, would often challenge me to ‘match the moths’ presenting me with a selection from that night’s moth trap and a list of names. My task, before releasing them unharmed back into the wild, was to work out who was who. With 2500 British species that might have seemed like an impossible ask, but one of the many delightful things about moths and moth names is that you can ‘say what you see’ and you’ll often arrive at the right match. Imagine a large yellow underwing, a chocolate tip, a large emerald or perhaps the more exotic sounding ruby tiger.
Large emerald by Anne Harwood
It is the hundreds of tiny scales with different pigments and light-reflecting properties that give this family their Latin name of Lepidoptera, meaning ‘scaly wing’, and that give these creatures their incredible colours and patterns. Some of these scales possess a metallic sheen which decorates the burnished brass, the gold spot and the silver Y. Other scales combine in such patterns to give us the most incredible examples of camouflage in the natural world. The buff tip combines silver-greys, chocolate browns and caramel tones to create a moth with a remarkable resemblance to a snapped silver birch twig. The chinese character mimics a bird dropping (a perfect disguise if you wish to avoid being eaten by birds) and the canary-shouldered thorn has the ragged outline and golden colours of an autumn leaf.
Buff tip moth by Carey Lodge
Canary-shouldered thorn by Pete Hughes
The lime-green and vivid pink of the elephant hawkmoth may seem rather unnecessary bright for a nocturnal creature, but when you learn that the caterpillar’s food plants are willowherbs in the wild places and fuchsias in the garden, the colouration suddenly makes sense. This stunning moth is perfectly camouflaged as she lays her eggs.
Elephant hawkmoth by Anne Harwood
Elephant hawkmoth caterpillar by Glenn Overington
At the reserve we benefit from a powerful moth trap with a bright bulb that ‘draws in’ moths from across the many habitats. We have now recorded 592 species on the reserve and often showcase them at our night-time safari or insect-themed events. We’ll be showcasing moths at some of our events over the summer:
Night-time safari – Saturday 20 August. Click here for more information and to book tickets
Wild Wednesdays – every Wednesday during the summer holidays. Find out more here
But you’ll be amazed at the diversity you could find in your garden using simply a torch shining on a white sheet or searching around your porch light in an evening.
I hope that I have painted a picture of intriguing colourful creatures but I must admit that the world of moths has its ‘little brown jobs’ too, but with names such as the ‘uncertain’, ‘confused’ and ‘suspected’ even these are not without their charms!