(Inter)National Moth Week

[Ken Childs]

Hi Folks,

I'm pleased to announce that 2012 will host the first annual National Moth Week! It will be held during the week of July 23-29.

Last year a few dedicated moth-ers in the Facebook Moth and Moth Watching group thought it would be a great idea to promote the hobby of mothing to a wider audience by creating a National Moth Night. After a few discussions with the group it was decided to make it last an entire week so more people could participate. Mothing has been going strong for the past 10 years or so in the UK but it's just getting going in the U.S. There are 120 events scheduled in 40 U.S. States but the response has been so great that it has turned into an international event so there are also events scheduled in 10 other countires. New registrations are coming in almost daily.

Much more information can be found on the National Moth Week web site.
http://nationalmothweek.org

This moth is an Orange-headed Epicallima. It's a very common moth in eastern North America but I bet that 99.99% of the people that live in that region don't know it exists. Why? Because it's only around 6mm long and it only comes out at night. This and many other very cool creatures (not just moths) are attracted to the light and sheet setups that are used for attracting moths. Last year I documented 740 species of moths in my yard and that doesn't include the 40 or so that I haven't been able to identify yet. There's the potential of 3,000 species here in west Tennessee so I have plenty of new ones to be on the lookout for. The diversity is astounding!

[Christopher Miller]

Very interesting, Ken. Thanks for letting us all know about it.

Seven hundred and forty species! Wow! That blows my mind! :Whoa!:

[Maureen Allen]

Really interesting, Ken. Thank you for the link. I have a white sheet ready - just need to find the right lights and I'll give this a try.

[Ken Childs]

Here's a link to some of my albums of things attracted to the lights. I'm mainly doing it for the moths but there are lots of other cool things that show up and they aren't all bugs. On a warm summer night, it's not unusual to find thousands of bugs representing hundreds of species.

https://picasaweb.google.com/107941137732251962394

Doing this can also be important for understanding the ranges of insect species. Most of us moth-ers submit our sightings to various online sites so the general public and researchers can get an idea of what can be found where.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very cool!! Impressive collection of photos too. One of the joys of sleeping over at the folks' cottage with my children is waking up early in the morning and looking what has perched on the log cabin under the patio lights. One morning we counted 4 Lunas Moths among the many other beautiful wonders!!

[Maureen Allen]

What an amazing collection of photos! Quite inspiring :S3:

[Steve Maxson]

This is an impressive body of work, Ken!! Are you using a special light source (e.g., a blacklight) to attract the moths and other cool critters? If so can you give us a type and source?

[Ken Childs]

This is an impressive body of work, Ken!! Are you using a special light source (e.g., a blacklight) to attract the moths and other cool critters? If so can you give us a type and source?
The first year I did this I used a sheet draped over some chairs and 2 clamp fixtures with 13w CF black lights from Home Depot/Lowes and it worked fairly well but moths had a tendency to get in hard to photograph spots so last year a made a frame out of PVC which gave me full access to both sides of the sheet. I added 2 inexpensive tube black lights from Wal-Mart which produced even better. This year I added a 60w incandescent. The theory is the bright light pulls the bugs in from a distance and the black lights hold them once they've arrived.

Here's a link to my setup and a few others. You'll find details about the setups here. Some people like to use mercury vapor lights but I'm not ready to blind myself with these incredibly bright lights.
http://nationalmothweek.org/category/mothing/

Most of the bugs I've been photographing in my light box are coming from the sheet. I'm also able to stock my aquarium with aquatic bugs that are attracted to the lights.

[Steve Maxson]

Thanks for this helpful info, Ken! :S3:
The first year I did this I used a sheet draped over some chairs and 2 clamp fixtures with 13w CF black lights from Home Depot/Lowes and it worked fairly well but moths had a tendency to get in hard to photograph spots so last year a made a frame out of PVC which gave me full access to both sides of the sheet. I added 2 inexpensive tube black lights from Wal-Mart which produced even better. This year I added a 60w incandescent. The theory is the bright light pulls the bugs in from a distance and the black lights hold them once they've arrived.

Here's a link to my setup and a few others. You'll find details about the setups here. Some people like to use mercury vapor lights but I'm not ready to blind myself with these incredibly bright lights.
http://nationalmothweek.org/category/mothing/

Most of the bugs I've been photographing in my light box are coming from the sheet. I'm also able to stock my aquarium with aquatic bugs that are attracted to the lights.

[Ken Childs]

Here's an update from the NMW site.

Hi Everybody! With only a few days left until the first National Moth Week, I thought I'd let everyone know how things are going.
As of today there are 228 registered locations in 48 US states (only Nevada and North Dakota are missing), 4 Canadian Provinces, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and 18 countries. Many of the locations have multiple moth nights that week so the actual number of moth nights is even higher than 228. There are also day-time events at public libraries with slide shows, evening slide show presentations and a day-time caterpillar hunt in Delaware. But there are also loads of private events, where people have told us they are getting together with family, friends and neighbors to look for moths in campgrounds, backyards and parks. The public programs and the private events are amazingly diverse and we wish we could attend them all.

We have also heard that The Nature Conservancy will be running a moth of the day series for the event and that National Geographic may also be interested in helping to promote the event. NMW has also been profiled online by Scientific American and a simple Google search reveals literally dozens and dozens of sites about it, many of which are all of yours.

The response to NMW has been simply overwhelming and together I think we are all really going to spotlight moths and biodiversity and raise environmental awareness across a very broad front in a way that has never been done before. With our partners at BugGuide, Discover Life, Project Noah and Moth Photographers Group, we are also very confident that NMW will gnereatea good deal of intersting data about moth distributions in the US and elsewhere. The groundwork and foundation we are laying this year only speaks to even brighter future National Moth Weeks. We have quite a few ideas on how to improve the effort next year and will be reaching out to everyone after the event for thoughts, ideas, etc. In the meantime, with only a few days left we would ask that everyone help with a final push to promote the event. The huge success of what we have seen so far is largely a function of all of your efforts through your various blogs, websites and contacts and we cant express our appreciation enough!

So, please consider a post about NMW in the next few days before the event and also ways to keep everyone informed during the week. And don't forget to send us photos of people at your events so we can show the world what it is like to attend a moth night and how cool and unique it is! Kudos to everyone for helping make NMW what is certain to be a huge success and a real environmental win! Thanks, on behalf of the whole NMW Team - Dave, Liti, Todd, Dan and Elena.

Dave Moskowitz
Co-Founder, National Moth Week