Thank you for your thoughtful response. You’ve given me some good ideas to play with.
First, let me thank you for your extended and thoughtful responses to my questions. I really appreciate your ideas.
Actually, the researcher I’m assisting got me involved in trapping moths because he’s away in the spring and fall when we do have darkness at night. He’s loaned me some pheromone traps and an LED light trap. We start getting full darkness around mid-August and we are up to 12 hours of night by the Fall Equinox, of course. Last year we got the first bit of snow on September 22 and on the 30th it was 27.5F/-2.5C, but my last moth was caught on Oct. 5, so they are hardy indeed. I just caught some adult moths this week so there are some species that clearly overwinter as adults.
The light trap has a black, fine-mesh collecting tube about 15" wide – in the mornings I would corral the moths into containers and then put them in the fridge until I had time to take photos. I will try to be more patient and let them sit until they’re relaxed, as you say. And thank you for linking eyespots with behavior. FYI the Catocala (Alaska’s largest moth) was a gift from the researcher: he showed me how it flashed its eyespots in response to being poked. After I took the photos I let it go and was pleased to see it fly off into the dusk.
Thanks, beautiful photos! Sometimes I get photos of moths in their natural habitat, it’s the ones I’m trapping for a research project that I’m trying to get better documentation of.