We are doing a moth survey from of our garden this year for a study in the département, but while waiting for the moth traps to arrive I've been leaving an outside light on & photographing all the visitors. Since then I decided to start the "sugar trap". I cooked up a litre of cheap wine & 1 Kg of sugar & put 2 natural ropes in the mixture & left to soak for a few days.
Then last night I suspended the ropes between 2 trees in the orchard (photo taken this morning)
Then while Ron was watching the Golf on TV, I was nipping in & out to see if there were any moths having a tipple. The first time I went out there were 2 who stayed until I went to bed & were gone at 5am when I went out to see if there were any more. I was really chuffed as I didn't think I'd get much.
This is a Herald :
.
This is Angle Shades
You can see they are both eating, I only hope they didn't have a hangover this morning!! I've left the ropes out so maybe I'll get something else tonight.
Best wishes
Hazel in Southwest France
Thanks EB ... now I remember where I know it from (without actually remembering name of course!) ... MC found one of it's caterpillars a few weeks ago & posted pics which looked as if going into chrysalis stage! I looked it up then as I am quite keen to keep one of these biggies (this or Privet or Elephant) in a terrarium to watch it emerge next year & transform into a beautiful creature! Not been lucky yet ... they can be purchased but would sooner find one in garden!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
That's a fabulous moth EB, I haven't seen one for ages now.
This is my last update on this thread as it's still jammed, so I thought i'd post the last photos from the last days in our old house. The trap was done on the 8th September & & then a few moths came to the sugary ropes afterwards too.
The first was a real treat as it's the same as the photo on the front of my micro-moth book. When I saw it I thought it was really familier!! It's latin name is Carcina quercana
A Chinese character
A new Crambidae Agriphila geniculea
A micro-moth in the Coleophoridae family
& finally a new Pug on the ropes, an Angle-barred Pug (I think)
I've edited out my records charts but if anyone is interested they can contact me direct!
Thanks for all your interest & support.