Walk On The Wildside: Here's how to monitor moths as large poplar steals the show

So, our now annual moth-trapping and counting event at Graves Park in Sheffield proved very successful. The aim is to audit the wildlife of the park and encourage members of the public to get actively involved in nature recording. This event was organised by the Biodiversity Research Group with the Friends of Graves Park and supported by the National Lottery and the Graves Trust.

There is a downside to ‘mothing’ which is that you need to be up late in the evening to get a result and when we do a public event, generally folk are heading off home at say 10.30 pm, just as the moths really start to arrive. To get around this problem we did things differently this year and set up two traps (basically very a bright light in a box full of egg cartons on which the moths settle) in gardens on Norton Park View backing onto the Chantreyland Meadows Garden in the park.

Then, the morning after, we transported the traps complete with their ‘catch’ into the Chantreyland Meadow to open them up, identify the moths, and count the numbers. Expert identification was on hand from Dr Paul Ardron and Jan Turner and we produced a hefty list of well over fifty different species.

Some of the moths are what are called ‘micros’ and whilst beautiful, are very tiny indeed. Others are larger and they can be quite spectacular. I think the most stunning individual was a poplar hawk moth which is large, beautifully marked, and all-in-all, quite a show-off and easy to handle.

I have to say that no moths were hurt during the event as all the moths trapped are speedily released. Additional excitement was provided by hornets flighting over the open, sunny meadow and I think ‘hawking’ after flying insects over the abundant flowers of meadow cranes-bill, lesser knapweed, meadowsweet, and the like. The other large predatory insect patrolling the areas was southern hawker dragonfly.