Moths...

One of my interests in life is moths and on dry, relatively wind-free nights I put a moth trap out in the garden. It has a mercury vapour bulb which attracts moths. The trap is lined with egg boxes and the moths go into the trap and roost up under the egg boxes. In the morning I go through the trap and count and identify all the different species. the results go off, at the end of the year, to the local Biological Recording Group and they in turn send them to the National Biodiversity network. Until I became interested in moths I never realised how beautiful some of them are. I sketched the Garden Tiger (Arctia caja) that was in the trap last night.

Garden Tiger

No moths were harmed in the making of this sketch - all the moths are released, un-harmed, back to the wild after being identified and counted :-)

Moth trap at dusk