Its probably better to pot them up late at night and then show the children next day. Thats what I did last year for the 10 year old down the road.
Last night I was in the garden at 2 am before t'other half insisted I go to bed, then I was up at 5 to switch it off and pot the moths. Then I went back to bed. Hello Barbie, lets go party. (Elephant hawkmoth on its back. )
I'm interested in moth trapping with kids. They are around ten years old and I'm wondering about the timing in the year, if doing it at night. I read that watching moths is best done around two hours after dark. If the best time to do trapping is when its most warm, then I'm thinking it will be too late for younger kids to be up (July/August). I could try setting up a trap and then checking results in the morning but a night hunt would be fun too. I'm a total novice but very up for it.
It's a good school holiday activity. Set the trap up with them on a warm evening and then if nothing turns up before bedtime you can still check it all in the morning. Make sure to get a good magnifying glass to look at the micro moths too.
Tonight the moths started turning up just after 11pm but it's been drizzling and set to get a lot worse later. I'm giving it until midnight then bringing the trap in out of the weather.
That satin moth is lovely @fidgetbones It hasn't been recorded anywhere near here but maybe I'll get lucky...
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Thanks. I have zero ID skills, unfortunately but maybe I can take some photos and share them. If I set up a sheet and a light (so kids can see them) and then turned the light off, would the moths then go into a trap, I wonder. I think I would just have to experiment.
White Satin moth is fairly rare in Derbyshire too, generally found in the South, which we are. First one I've seen. It wasn't actually in the trap, it had settled on the greenhouse door next to the white sheet I had hung over the doorway. As for the Elephant hawkmoth, it just looked like a Barbie in a cloak, flat on its back after a night out.
@SalixGold I found a design for a trap on a website munchingcaterpillars.org. I didn't want to spend any money on my first attempt for our visitor, so I used a cardboard box as a base and used a staple gun to hold the bits of wood to the side for the supports etc. On a recent GW episode their wildlife person was showing her trapping. Seeing the box she used made making mine easier. After the first success at daughters garden I tried it here but I only had the light on till about midnight. Stupidly I didn't cover the trap so by next day all bar one had got out again- lesson learned. It's been too cold and windy since but will try again when conditions are better. Good luck.
Well the rain didn't put them off much last night. I still managed over 20 moth species in a couple of hours along with some interesting by-catch. I didn't think I'd caught anything new but I think I've actually added three new species to my garden list including this grey/dark dagger that I thought I'd already recorded in the past but hadn't. Sadly I just take a vague record photo of anything that isn't new so I was lucky that this was even half in focus.
Also I finally got a decent photo of a micro caddisfly thanks to the new camera lens. I still don't know what species it is though. It's only about 3mm long.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I've just seen the details of this LED mothing lamp. https://www.gunnarbrehm.de/en/lepi-led It's been getting rave reviews as it works as well as a 125w MV bulb but runs off a small USB battery pack. It's a shame it's so expensive as it makes trapping a lot more mobile. The price is cheap for someone who was looking at buying a big battery or generator for fieldwork but hopefully something more affordable for hobbyists will come along soon.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I ordered a couple of blue light torches from TEMU. Dead cheap. If they only work as torches fair enough, but I intend trying to point one at a white sheet and see if it brings anything in.
I had a close encounter with a Hummingbird Hawk Moth last night. I was out walking the dog at nearly 9pm, it was cold, rainy and with a gusty wind but a moth flew past my face blown by the wind. It tried to feed from some thistles by the road but the wind was too strong and it zipped away. It's the first one I've seen up here in years and normally we only get them in warm weather. Very odd.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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I didn't want to spend any money on my first attempt for our visitor, so I used a cardboard box as a base and used a staple gun to hold the bits of wood to the side for the supports etc. On a recent GW episode their wildlife person was showing her trapping. Seeing the box she used made making mine easier. After the first success at daughters garden I tried it here but I only had the light on till about midnight. Stupidly I didn't cover the trap so by next day all bar one had got out again- lesson learned. It's been too cold and windy since but will try again when conditions are better.
Good luck.