Sunday 22 September 2013

Night Time Sugaring & Wine Ropes = Moths and Earwigs!

22nd September 2013 - Staying up after bedtime to find moths........

 
Time For Some Unusual Cooking!
Recipe to find moths:  
Brown Ale, Brown Sugar, Treacle ......... Red Wine, Sugar..................
http://www.mothnight.info/www/index.php/recording-techniques


This is me I am going to make sweet yummy moth food. I feel so excited, I can not wait for it to get dark. Mummy got me to try treacle it was not nice, it was very thick and sticky and smelt horrible. Daddy loves it in his pudding ha ha!

Treacle going in...
Wine going in....

Brown Sugar, Treacle, Ale






















Wine & Sugar



Taaaa daaaa.....!
Some yummy moth food, now
for some night time painting and cloth dipping.


Greedy Moths.......
Red Underwing (Catocala Nupta)

Copper Underwing
 I was scared going out in the dark, there was a big full moon.  I kept thinking that a fox was about and there was a really loud screeching noise coming from our garden, I wondered if it was an owl.

I was really excited to see the moths, they were lovely.  The red underwing was my favourite is was very big.  We didn't find lots of different moths only 3 types. I wonder why that would be? I also liked the brown moth it had lovely, pretty shades of brown.  Can you see the moths tongue?

Silver Y Moth  - They shiver to warm up on cold days !!!



 The earwigs loved the treacle mixture. I counted 11 earwigs all munching away!

 I am going to do some more moth night time hunts and next time I think I will spread the wine cloths everywhere!!

2 comments:

  1. Hello Large and Small People what Fun you seem to be having I am so pleased you found some Moths , It is very interesting to see which ones you have found :-) . Sugar and wine sometimes find moths that light does not attract !! The last Moth is called the Silver Y more here http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=2441 They shiver to warm up on cold days !!! Very well Done Alexandra it is very like Jamie Oliver Kitchen and making Dinner !!! Different moths appear at different times depending on what plants are around for the caterpillars to feed on.it is getting toward the end of the busy season for mothing but try sugaring and roping in a variety of different plant or wooded places It is a very good picture of the Red Underwing . why do you think it has bright red underwings ???? Good Luck with your next interesting project and we all look forward to seeing what you find

    Best wishes

    Colin D

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  2. You had more success with sugaring than I usually do.

    Some IDs for your moths. The first one (the picture called moth7) is one of the Copper Underwings. The only way to tell whether it is Amphipyra pyramidea (Copper Underwing) or Amphipyra berbera (Svensson's Copper Underwing) is to see how far the copper colour goes on the underside of the hind wings. So I cannot say which it is from the picture.

    The second one (the picture called moth8) is Silver Y (Autographa gamma). You can recognise it from the y shaped marking on the wing

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