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
Hi all, I've just read the latest Blog on Loch Garten ospreys promoting the recording of moths throughout the UK (& Europe), so if you're not yet an adict, have a look at it HERE
The more that do it the better!!
Thanks BW. I never started on butterflies until about 6 years ago & moths the last 3 or 4 years, but like you I had a lovely book as a child "Butterflies & Moths shown to the children" with colour plates. My dad always called out the names of the common butterflies when we were out walking & some of it must have stuck. This trap thing has been a real eye-opener, I count the days off until I can do another capture!
We had a couple of warmer nights at the weekend so I set up the trap for the Saturday in case the weather turned bad for the Sunday, it's tricky with such unsettled weather. I had a record session of 67 moths, 35 species of which 13 were new for this year. I'll just run through a few of the best,
A Cream-spot Tiger
A Light Emerald,
A Brussels Lace (lovely name isn't it)
a Many-lined Moth (one of my favourites of the night)
a Grey Dagger
a Beautiful Hook-Tip, yes that's it's name & well named too, my favourite, definately,
a Cream-bordered Pea, rather an odd name, it's not pea shaped, EDIT 5/10 I got this totally wrong it's a Green Oak Tortrix!!
a Vine's Rustic (I think but not 100%)
& finally a few micro moths, this one was well marked, a Bramble-shoot moth,
a "Hedya pruniana" (possible)
& a Celypha cespitana (possible)
They are very tricky these micro moths, but they all deserve a mention!!
Roll on next week-end & the next moth night.
Another lovely set Hazel; wow ! can't believe you caught 67 moths !! its unbelievable there are so many different species of them, its opened a new world to me lol
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Regards, Hazel
love the tiger moths Hazel
Great thread
Ray
a good laugh is better than a tonic
I'm with Hazy in saying that I'd never have thought there were so many different species of Moths out there. I find it quite amazing that you know so many of them. Great pics by the way, I can't pick a favourite though, they're all beautiful in their own ways.
Paul
My bird photos HERE
Fabulous Hazel - it's fascinating to see so many different species of moths in such detail. I'm going to be needing your expertise soon - got a couple of day flying moths on my travels yesterday - very common ones I'm sure, there were so many of them about, but I'll be posting them up for id later when I get time!
See my Flickr photos here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/115745582@N04/
Thanks all. I can't claim to know many Paul, I've a rough idea on the families & where to look, but it took most of a day to sort them all & label the new ones. I still have to doublecheck even the one's I think I know as there are lots that are very similar. However I enjoy the challenge so I'm not complaining!
I am improvising, no red wine in the house but a bottle of ready made mulled wine and a good kilo of sugar currently brewing at last
Cin J
Sounds like a good party at your house tonight Germain, all moths welcome!!
I managed another session with the Ikea trap last night (too many storms at night recently), I photographed 51 moths which I'm trawling through at the moment. It looks like there may be quite a few newbies! Will post tomorrow, if they're sorted by then.