Moths & Coffee

We've been mothing for about 3 years now, trapping and identifying moths with our home made moth trap.  But this year, we started the season earlier than ever, and have trapped nearly every night that the weather would allow it (not too cold, windy, or rainy).  We have been getting an incredible number of fascinating moths, and we thought it was time to share this nerdy habit with others.  Hey... most of our friends already know we're crazy, so that's not going to be news.  On that thought, we planned a "moths & coffee" gathering on a Sunday morning and invited some friends to have breakfast treats and see what we caught in our moth trap the previous night.

We totally lucked out with one of the best moth nights yet, and also with the fact that I had 3 extra moth traps from work that I needed to test out before sending out with some volunteers in the field.  AND, the previous night we had collected a luna moth and a polyphemous moth (both huge saturniid silk moths) and we kept them one more day to show everyone.  So there were some great moths to show the 10 or so kids who gathered around on the deck to open the first moth trap.  I talked for a bit about moth biology and kids and adults were able to ask their questions about what the heck these furry night butterflies are up to, anyway.  I think most were surprised at how diverse and beautiful moths are- from beautiful yellow and green moths, to striking patterns, and sizes ranging from a bit of your pinky nail to bigger than your hand!  The luna and polyphemous moths definitely captured the kids' attentions (they were amazed that these moths don't even have mouths to eat, and live for only a week or so with their singular purpose being to find a mate and lay eggs) and when each of them vibrated their wings to warm up and took off up into the canopy they shouted farewells to them.  In the second moth trap, we also caught a promethea moth (another huge silk moth) and three large sphinx moths- one of which we'd never caught before.  So this would have been a banner day for us without all the people there to watch, but it was doubly fun to share.  I'm sure now I'll be known as the crazy moth-lady (as opposed to previous titles such as "crazy dragonfly-lady" or "crazy bird-lady") but hey, there could be worse things...

Haley has 2 rosy maple moths on her dress (right about at belly button) and Ellis one in her hand