Ah, thank you. I think I have a magnifier with a light for the iPhone. I’ll have start practicing with it (I found it to be a bit awkward when I first tried it out).
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Nice moth!!..
I can’t be the only one enjoying moth week, so what are you seeing?
Mompha murtfeldtella (White-based Mompha) on July 26, 2022 at 09:13 PM by Elliott Gordon · iNaturalist
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With not-moths again?.)
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Over 40 lifers this week, getting me up over 450 (if my ID’s are accurate). Nearly missed what I believe is a Yellow-Gray Underwing, but luckily it came back and was very cooperative.
Pink-shaded Fern Moth
Tip…don’t overlook the Grass-Veneers. I normally do, and would have missed this lifer Topiary Grass-Veneer.
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Moth week was kind of a bust for me. I only managed 26 species. As usual my black lighting resulted in far more non-moths than moths. One night I tried moving my sheet away from the side of the house and into the center of the yard on a rope weighed down with bricks. I think the weather app said it was only like 3mph wind, but the sheet was still moving just enough to make focusing on tiny stuff very very frustrating. That night there was also a bald faced hornet on my lighting tripod. This description is copied from my observation of it just to save me some typing.
Sat calmly on my tripod leg all night before I very gently flicked it into the grass while putting my stuff away, and then I promptly forgot about it. When I went to shake off my sheet before going inside I must have whipped it in the grass and it proceeded to fly up and sting my upper lip and then chase me into the garage. Went to bed with a fat lip and an ice pack, but at least the two Benadryl I took knocked me out good!
So that was not a good night! The last thing I saw before being stung was this stunning mantidfly though, so maybe it was worth it! I did manage a few lifer moth species including this Boxwood Leaftier Moth (Galasa nigrinodis) which I actually found in my bathroom. It probably was on my clothes when I came inside one night.
Maybe I’ll have more luck this week when it is supposed to be a lot warmer than last week.
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I can report 60 iNaturalist observations of 43 moth species during National Moth Week, plus “nocturnal bycatch” of beetles, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, cockroaches, spiders, 5 genera of lacewings and 1 antlion, dozens of true bugs, and a few flies/gnats/midges.
They ranged from tiny and tricky https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/128250427 to graceful and recognizable https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/128743458
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Hmmm, eeh, I really apologize for my ignorance, but what is ‘‘moth week’’? I had never heard about that before. Sorry if I sound like I live under a rock, but it just started to appear everywhere and I don’t know what it is.
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Looks like just under 200 species, with 187 give or take confirmations/mid-ID’s. Potentially 59 lifers, again give or take. Really good week with some rare stuff for my area.
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https://nationalmothweek.org/
National Moth Week is being held, worldwide, during the last full week of July.
Would be nice if it were called International Moth Week to better reflect its global nature.
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My moth cloths, which I did twice just before and just after Moth Week, turned up relatively few moths, but a fair number of beetles and small winged insects. Masked chafers bumbled around a lot both times.
The first time, I set up my cloth draped over a fence with a bright work light on one side of the fence and a black light on the other side. I got just a few insects, but I retired it about 11 am.
Last night, I set the cloth in a different yard with the work light on one side and the black light on the other. Tons of little gnat things and tiny insects, but a medium number of beetles and small moths. This time I stayed on it until 12:30 am.
Is there a better way to deploy a moth cloth?
Not sure if better, but I have the UV light shine away from the white surface, at the moths. And I generally use a white wall and don’t bother with the cloth at all. It’s more stable which makes taking pictures easier.
It does vary a lot day by day and depend on the weather (temperature, humidity) and how much competition there is from the moon and other nearby lights.
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My favorites are luna moth (Actias luna) and rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda) which are both so pretty they don’t even look real. family saturniidae honestly got the best moths
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I’ve been thinking about skipping the sheet and just shining the lights on the house too. One less thing to setup and take down and no wind moving the sheet issue. I have bright white vinyl siding with a bit of a fake wood texture to it on that side of the house. The insects seem to be able to hold onto it pretty well because I find plenty behind the sheet on the siding when I take it down. I was worried that maybe having uv lights shining in one spot for so many hours would discolor or damage the siding… but it handles the sunlight, so that was flawed thinking I guess.
For those having the light shine outward, doesn’t that hurt your eyes and make it hard to see the moths and take photos?
One thing I just thought to do was use a magnifying glass to scan the tiny stuff and decide which to photograph, which should be faster than trying to get them in focus with my camera. Most are so small that I can’t see much with just my eyes.
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I have resisted any sheet setup so far as they come to my porch lights. I prefer it when they land on the white flashing, but settle for them on the wood siding. Pics won’t be in any future field guide, but I like most of them. White siding would be great to use as a back drop.