MARCH NATURE NOTES

By Neil Pinder
Garden Moth Survey
The Garden Moth Survey, which has been running since 2007, aims to pull together the data recorded by hundreds of moth enthusiasts throughout the land. In 2009 there was a push to get more ‘moth-ers’ involved from the East Midlands and there were over a dozen of us who contributed. The beauty of garden mothing is twofold.
1) It’s dead easy – just switch the trap on before dusk and rummage through it in the morning.
2) It’s dead exciting because you never know what it might contain.
Moths have a reputation for being dowdy and annoying and there are some that are just that. Unfortunately, the results of the GMS show that the most frequent visitors to the garden traps fall into this category with the most common being Heart & Dart followed by Large Yellow Underwing.
It is number nine on the list before anything obviously not dowdy appears; the Brimstone moth (as you might expect) is bright yellow and very pretty – “like a butterfly” many will say.
There are so many species of moth; many thousands in Britain alone, compared to the 70 or so British butterflies that it is inevitable that there is greater variety and yes, some moths are stunningly beautiful with even the tiniest worth a closer look through a hand lens.
For it’s not just in colour and pattern that they vary – the biggest moth I get in my garden has a wingspan of nearly 120mm (4¾ inches) and the tiniest is just 4mm. Let me know if you would like to join in with the GMS but otherwise look out for events being arranged on May 15th as this is the 2010 National Moth Night.