I'm a devoted moth-er

Caroline Moore, who’s recorded 850 moth species in her Sussex garden, sings the praises of her five favourite finds

My hobby (aka obsession) is ideally suited to my advancing years.

At present, I am still able to birdwatch while I walk the dog, and to weed the garden; but when I am too doddery to do either, I will still be able to keep my log of the local moths.

The joy of moths lies not only in their underrated beauty and their incredible variety, but in the fact that if you possess a moth trap with a mercury vapour bulb, they will come to you.

Birds, you may claim, come to a bird table – but the numbers are simply not comparable. After a nice, muggy summer night, one can find hundreds of species, and easily a thousand individual moths, waiting in the trap in the morning.

I have so far recorded 850 species just in my own East Sussex garden, with an old Robinson trap on the terrace by my house. Some of them have been exciting finds – 65 of them are rare enough to qualify as Nationally Scarce, and eight are Red Data Book species. A couple have never before been found in Sussex.

We moth enthusiasts, who send photographs and other data to our County Recorders, can claim to be an army of citizen scientists: our efforts are important because moths are an internationally recognised marker for biodiversity. They are particularly susceptible to air and light pollution, and to agri-chemicals; so a healthy population of moths is a sign of the health of the countryside.

And what beauties they are. Even the commonest can take one’s breath away: you might find the trap shimmering, for example, with ten or more elephant hawkmoths. These have a wingspan of about two inches and are golden – olive-green – striped with shocking pink. Like those of all moths, their wings when fresh are feathered with fragile, glistening, light-diffracting scales.