Moth Trapping

This has been, and still is, a fascinating and surprisingly exciting all year round study, with the added benefit of being able to inspect at close quarters, living, moving creatures of great diversity and often bright decoration. The early morning prospect of unknown quantity, variation and rarity of the moths in the trap, simple recording and comparison with the Norfolk database is one I look forward to every day.

When the Natural Connections moth identification workshop was offered, it was the course we were least interested in – after all moths are only little brown flying insects whereas butterflies were far more colourful and birds far more interesting. Little did we know! Our eyes have been opened to a side of the natural world we hardly knew existed because we would be fast asleep. Far from being little brown flying insects, we have seen moths of ever colour possible, large and small. They have such wonderful names that really do reflect what they look like – e.g. black arches, eyed hawkmoth. It has been a very rewarding experience, as we both started with very little in the way of identification skills and have now developed a skill we can really enjoy over the years and which will also be valuable to our environment.