SPOT THE MOTHS
In these photos there are British moths. Can you spot them and name them? Some are easy to spot and some are very difficult. Moths are very amazing at camouflage…
LETTER TO BBC APRIL 7th 2017
Dear BBC-type-people,
Factually you are incorrect about moths.
You did a rather off-hand report on breakfast (April 6th) about moths eating some upholstery in some stately home and talked about ‘moths loving dirt’ and reported the item as if ALL moths in the UK eat clothes. You then went on to report the different ways we can kill moths.
This is just lazy journalism. The reported couldn’t even be bothered to find out the name of the moth but instead chose to report it so it seemed like all moths were the problem.
It’s irresponsible as people who know nothing about moths - (your reporter/compiler/'story’-inventor/whoever included) will have this ignorant view corroborated.
You made a half-hearted attempt to correct this by having Zoe Randle from Butterfly Conservation on the Today programme this morning (April 7th) but she was not given a chance to explain and, yet again, you had someone talking for longer about how awful the moths were and annoying it is that they’re all eating someone’s clothes, and which ways they could be killed. John Humphries seemed biased in his view and closed the interview leaving us in no doubt that moths are bad.
I really find it upsetting that you think it’s a
casual item.
Our UK species of moths are under very real threat because of eradication of
and damage to their habitats and food-plants, as well as light pollution and
other human activities, and you’re just making it worse.
You can’t even get your facts right.
Let’s get this straight. There are roughly 2,500
species of moth in the UK (there are 59 species of butterfly).
Only 5 species of moth caterpillar actually eat clothes (some of these are
rare) and they will only eat clothing made of natural fibres.
The two most common species are the Brown House-moth and tinea pellionella.
They are not particularly attracted by dirt. They don’t 'love dirt’ as the reported
stated. They have natural fibres such as woollens and hemp as their larval
food-plant when they are caterpillars as all caterpillars do of both moths and
caterpillars, (and many flies, beetles and other insects).
I could’ve reported this item better.
It’s true there could be a problem when you have an infestation of a particular
type of moth. Yes I said 'moth’ - this is only ONE species of moth and I would
guess in that stately home that it is tinea pellionella.
I would’ve known to name that species and do a proper interesting story about
it. And it IS interesting because the tiny moth caterpillar - it is VERY small
- makes a small case for itself out of what it’s eating and drags itself along
in the case. The little case will be the same colour as the thing it’s eating
so it’s hard to see it. This is an interesting story and gives new information
to most people. It wouldn’t’ve taken any longer for the reporter to say either.
However - instead what we had was a really simplistic and erroneous report. It would be the equivalent of reporting a type of bird which is doing a behaviour which human activity conflicts with (such as eating crops) - as ALL birds. Stupid!
All the person compiling the report had to do was a) ask one of your many wildlife presenters you have working for you b) go online to a site such as ukmoths c) use a book - to find out which moth was doing this and to see that all moths are not only harmless to human beings, they are very important as they are food for birds, help pollinate plants and are vital to the planet because of their role in the ecosystem - munching their way through incredible amounts of organic matter as well as other roles.
That’s more than we can say for human beings.
PLEASE - do not attempt to report things like this in future if all you’re going to do is make a hash of it. At least try and find someone who knows.
It is not funny and no-one’s laughing. The planet is in danger and you’re making it worse.
Honestly – it makes other wildlife programmes you do such as SpringWatch seem a bit less genuine – I mean couldn’t you’ve connected with these supposed numerous wildlife presenters who work for you ay?
I don’t suppose you are going to respond but I hope someone is reading this and thank you for doing so.
Yours sincerely,
annA rydeR
Garden Moth Scheme March 9th + 11th in Warwick
These moths are pristine apart from the Angle Shades which has damaged wings. Maybe this was due to it being interrupted as it emerged. It was able to fly properly so probably got eaten!
I am doing the Garden Moth Scheme this year which is all about keeping records of the moths we find in our gardens in the UK. These records help to understand moths more and to find out if moths are doing ok. Some of them are and some of them aren’t. Here is the link… http://www.gardenmoths.org.uk/ -
MOTHIFY PROJECT 2016 Woodcraft Group, Berkshire September 24th Post 6 of 6
Here are some of the moths we found. There were a lot of moths but many of the same species especially Lunar Underwing and Large Yellow Underwing.
The most exciting finds were a Water Carpet and a Triple-Spotted Clay.
MOTHIFY PROJECT 2016 Woodcraft Group, Berkshire September 24th Post 5 of 6
We spent a long time just opening traps and looking at the moths, putting them in pots and identifying them, talking about them and showing them to each other.
Adults and children alike were really interested in the whole thing.
MOTHIFY PROJECT 2016 Woodcraft Group, Berkshire, September 24th Post 4 of 6
A lot of enjoyment identifying the moths was going on. you can see how much the adults enjoyed it too. The thing is that most people don’t get to see moths yet we have 2,500 species of moth (compared to 60 species of butterfly). Moths when attracted to light are easy to see, handle and photograph but butterflies fly off and are hard to catch and you might damage them.
When people realise how amazing moths are they usually don’t forget and, because we’ve shown them, they know how easy it is to do for themselves.
MOTHIFY PROJECT 2016 Woodcraft Group, Berkshire September 24th Post 3 of 6
There are lots of people in this group but they were all quite careful with the moths and really enjoyed looking at them. The session we did before was in June so these were different species of moth than the ones they’d seen before.
Here you can see how everyone is really enjoying looking up the moths and inspecting them…
This is a song about moths made by this group one evening. There are different verses made by different groups but the choruses are everyone playing and some people singing. This is the verse made by the fifth group.
If you want to hear the separate choruses and verses they are all here on the blog.
They came back in the morning to open light-traps they had put out to attract moths…
This is a song about moths made by this group one evening. There are different verses made by different groups but the choruses are everyone playing and some people singing. This is the verse made by the fourth group.
If you want to hear the separate choruses and verses they are all here on the blog.
They came back in the morning to open light-traps they had put out to attract moths…
This is a song about moths made by this group one evening. There are different verses made by different groups but the choruses are everyone playing and some people singing. This is the verse made by the third group.
If you want to hear the separate choruses and verses they are all here on the blog.
They came back in the morning to open light-traps they had put out to attract moths…