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Lights, Bait, and Staying up Late

Moth observation
Guests observe moths at a lighted sheet set up in the author’s backyard in the summer of 2018. One side of the sheet is illuminated by an ultraviolet collecting light and the other (not visible here) by a mercury vapor bulb. Photo by Ellen Harasimowicz ®

The invitation was irresistible. I was chatting with Dave Small, president of the Athol Bird & Nature Club, who’d just given a winter lecture on moths. The images he’d shared were stunning: close-ups of brightly colored creatures with hairy bodies, magnificent wing scales, unexpected color patterns, and outrageous antennae. These were not the drab-colored insects I sometimes spotted at my porch lights. I asked how he attracted such shocking variety to his yard, and he surprised me with this: “Why don’t you come to my next moth ball?”

Moth ball is what moth enthusiasts call their nighttime viewing parties, and I learned at Dave’s event (of course I went!) that the tools for encouraging moths to attend are rather simple: special lights and sugary baits.

Although moths’ attraction to light is well-known, the reasons for this attraction are poorly understood. We do know that not all lights are the same. Sure, an incandescent bulb will attract a few stragglers, but nowhere near the variety or number of moths that will be drawn to bulbs that emit light in the ultraviolet range. Interestingly, some moth species are more attracted to flower nectar and tree sap than to lights, so moth watchers have learned to smoosh bananas with brown sugar, mix in a little beer or rum, and to use the concoction to entice even more moths.

When I arrived at Dave’s home in Athol, Massachusetts, I found a dozen moth-watching stations around the yard. Plain white bedsheets were hung from clotheslines or pinned to the side of the garage, UV tubes or mercury vapor bulbs shining beside them. The lights entice the moths, the sheets serve as nice landing pads. Bait was dabbed onto fence posts and tree trunks. Some stations were on the lawn, others on the edge of the woods around that lawn, and a couple more along a path through the trees. Once it was dark, human guests of all ages strolled from station to station, most wearing headlamps and carrying cameras, magnifying lenses, or notebooks. You could tell us newbies by our squealing.

By the time I had to leave Dave’s place, I’d seen a dozen new-to-me moth species. Still, I hated to leave because I’d noticed, and the experts at the party verified, an increase in moth activity as the night wore on. Peak moth watching, my new friends told me, happens between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.; I was convinced that some incredible moth was going to flutter in the moment I drove off. Which is to say that I had become, in a single night, completely hooked on moth watching. I began researching lights of my own the very next day.

Now I spend July and August nights watching moths into the wee hours, sometimes by myself but often inviting friends and neighbors. There’s nothing like dazzling beginners with their very first luna moth sighting or watching their wonder as that most beautiful of insects steps from a lighted sheet onto the tip of their finger.

For information on what lights to use: loreeburns.com/lights-for-your-moth-ball

National Moth Week this year is July 23–31. For more information, visit nationalmothweek.org

For information on Dave Small’s annual moth ball, visit the Athol Bird & Nature Club at atholbirdclub.org

For help identifying the moths you meet, pick up a field guide or two; one good one is David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie’s Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America (Houghton, 2012).

And for a kid-friendly beginner’s guide to hosting a moth ball, check out You’re Invited to a Moth Ball (Charlesbridge, 2020), by Loree Griffin Burns and photographer Ellen Harasimowicz.

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