Our*?
No, I just have a pair of these and I set them up in two different spots with different flora, hanging the on white t-shirts that are on clothes hangers. Then go back and forth to the lights to see what’s new at each one for a few hours. Possibly with a beer in hand.
3 Likes
Sounds great!
Do you ever use bait?
Susan
1 Like
Just light and irrational hope.
4 Likes
Hilarious!
Favorite species? I’m going to have to go with the day-flying erebid, Hyalurga vinosa. If I can help it, my first paper on them won’t be my last.
Favorite mothing experiences? I would have to say my first time traveling abroad, to a biological station in Costa Rica. Each morning, the windows would be covered with dozens of moths, and as far as I could tell, no two were the same.
I don’t have any real mothing tips, though.
3 Likes
Look at these moths of Bhutan! A lot of fabulous species:
6 Likes
Whooaaaaah!! Those are some amazing moths!! Look at those geometrids!
1 Like
That’s a place for those who need a green one for their list!
3 Likes
Some of the earliest postings in the Moths of Bhutan project are mine.
my Bhutan moths
(This beauty is my ~one and only~ iNat first: )
Our tour was glamping in southern Bhutan and a collection of stunning moths clustered in the bathhouses every night. I was enchanted. To my surprise, no one else in the tour was even faintly interested in the amazing moths there.
This is one of my very few trips abroad, so it was quite special to me. Bhutan is very scenic with more preserved natural places than most countries in the world.
4 Likes
I like all of them. Well, maybe not Spongy Moth, which is non-native and invasive here in New England.
I like going to my moth trap early in the morning and opening it up - it’s like Christmas every time! I don’t use a killing agent (I rarely have a reason to collect a moth), so sometimes moths come flying up towards me, especially on very warm mornings.
I like that we have a local Moth Ball, where a friend sets up lots of light sources, we all bring snacks and refreshing beverages, and the party goes on till dawn (but I’m usually asleep by midnight).
I like learning about different habitats through moth eyes - pond and marsh sites have different species than pine barrens, for example. I am drawn to color and pattern in many ways (I weave and quilt, for example), so moths are completely fascinating to me.
4 Likes
I started doing the nighttime blacklight mothing a little under two years ago, and have only done it in my own yard so far. I was really impressed with how quickly my species count jumped with this method, but surprisingly it was mostly not moth species. I’ve been adding all these observations to the Blacklight Bugs project so they are easier to find. So far I have 353 species in the project, and only 110 of them are moths. Although, that is a significant portion of my overall moth species count of 163. Most of the nighttime moths haven’t been too exciting so far. In fact most nights when I go out there everything on my sheet is under 1cm and some shade of brown! My most showy nighttime moths have been these lichen moths.
My favorite moths so far are actually the dayflying sphinx moths I’ve seen. I’ve been able to find eggs and raise several in the Hemaris genus. It was really fun to get to watch and photograph the whole life cycle of Hemaris thysbe and Hemaris diffinis.
I’ve been thinking I should switch up something about my blacklight setup to maybe attract more moths. Part of the problem I know is that the latest I’ve been out has been about 1:30am. I’ve always thought I was a night owl, but apparently not for this activity! I’m a little worried about being outside in the dark by myself on hot muggy nights wearing long pants and a hooded sweatshirt (for mosquitos and keeping critters out of my hair and ears). I have issues with dizziness at the best of times and especially when repeatedly squatting down and standing up… which I sure do a lot of trying to photograph the insects.
I’m in the suburbs with lots of light pollution and not many mature trees around, so that I’m sure limits the moth population too. I’ve been putting my sheet against my house to try and keep it from moving too much in the breeze. This makes focusing on tiny things easier, but maybe moths flying over can’t see it as well. I have the lights on a tripod about five feet away from the sheet, so it lights up the whole thing, but I’ve seen others hanging lights right in front of the sheet pointing away from it. I’m a little concerned about a fire hazard near the house doing that. That’s also why I’m not totally comfortable leaving the light on while I go to sleep and then waking up in the early am to check it like many other people do. Maybe if it was farther away from the house and we didn’t have naughty raccoons around that like to get into things overnight. I’m currently using a 10watt led uv flood light and a cfl white bulb to help me see better, along with a led daylight headlamp on my cap.
I haven’t had much luck with moth bait so far either. It just attracts a lot of ants. I tried the fruit, sugar, molasses and booze mush painted on tree bark and logs method, and the rope/fabric strips soaked in a sugar and wine syrup.
I’m going to keep trying though. Even though I don’t see a lot of moths, there are usually a few new to me very tiny things to be found on the sheet.
3 Likes
It really helps to go into a more rural, natural area to bump up your diversity. Lighting in a residential area with few large trees and lots of exotics is not going to get very many moth species. You might get lucky on some nights though
Nice! … have a question for you: how do you get such bright pictures? My UV photos are dark blue.
1 Like
I use a bright LED headlamp on my head, as I shoot through a DSLR. It essentially washes out the UV light and my camera has a UV filter on it, so it’s not seeing much of that.
A more diffuse light would bring out texture more, but this is good enough. I do have to keep my headlamp on its highest mode, because the dimmer modes pulse a little in a way that doesn’t go well with the camera shutter.
1 Like
I do have a bunch of natives on my own property, but it’s only 1/4 acre and surrounded by more typical suburban landscaping. Most of my neighbors are the type that really like their monoculture lawns, pesticides, bug zappers, and flood lights left on all night. Unfortunately, I’m miles away from even any small wooded areas. I am surprised though at the number of insects from aquatic habitats that I see, maybe due to ponds at the golf course that’s fairly close.
I’m using a camera flash which totally overpowers the other lights. I kind of have to since pretty much everything I see is so tiny that I use a Raynox 150 clip on close-up lens on my camera for magnification. That makes the depth of field very shallow, so I set my camera to the smallest aperture to compensate and then need the flash to freeze any motion by me or the insect. The downside is that the flash reflects off shiny insects a lot and can’t always capture the beautiful coloration of some of those iridescent insects. I need to practice more with different flash diffusers and other techniques. Photographing bigger insects is definitely easier for me, so I really wish I could attract more of them!
To use the close-up lens I need my camera to be about 8 inches from the insect, and my small external flash seems to work ok at that distance. I know most cell phone cameras can take good close up images of small things from just a few inches away, but I don’t know how well their flashes work at that distance?
2 Likes
I bought this 2-pack, a few nights ago one of them stopped working (appears to be a faulty On switch). The other one works fine. I’ve had them less than thirty days, so they’re sending a replacement. I’ve only used the set-up a few times, so I can’t say for certain if it’s a bad light in general or I just got a dud.
They’re each plugged into a separate 10,000mAh phone charger battery. Fully charged you will get at least four hours of light.
Is that a lacewing advertising for moth week?
Feels like spotting a trick question on a quiz. :)
4 Likes
