Step-3: Take photographs -- following the protocols for Moth Monitoring (described here),
Moth Party,
or One More Moth.
How-to videos -- Mothing
• Advanced Mothing
The first time you take photographs at a particular site, take photographs of
- your cell phone's time and date (to check that your camera's time and date are set correctly),
- GPS and/or a landmark, such as a street sign (to document the exact location),
- the light or lights that you are monitoring (to get a relative estimate of the total moths that night),
- and finally, each specimen (moth, frog, ...) that comes to the light.
On subsequent nights at the same site, take photographs of your cell phone, lights, and the creatures.
You do not need to take a photograph of your GPS after the first night, so long as the photograph of
the light(s) is sufficient to link your location to a previous night's photograph of a GPS/landmark.
In photographing the creatures, your goals in order of importance should be to
- Photograph each SPECIES each night.
Our primary goal is to document when each species is flying during the year.
- Document when there are no moths.
Don't just photograph on nights when there are lots of moths.
On nights where there no moths, just take photographs of your cell phone and the lights.
In this way you will document absence as well as presence.
This is something that many studies do not do but is very important to distinguish between
whether the site was sampled and a species was absent or whether the site was not sampled.
- Photograph each SPECIMEN each night with a millimeter ruler.
If you wish to take multiple photographs of the same specimen, do so, but only submit one
photograph of each specimen with a ruler. Thus, by counting the number of specimens photographed with rulers,
we can estimate the relative abundance of the species. In cases where there are lots and lots of moths
of a species and it is impractical to take a photograph of all of them, take photographs of at least 5
individuals. If a moth is jumpy and likely to fly if you put a ruler beside it,
first take a photograph of the moth and then one of the moth with the ruler.
- Moth condition, size and behavior.
In addition to recording the geographic distribution, seasonality, and relative abundance,
your photographs will document variation in the size of individuals, mating behavior, wing wear and
damage by predators, and whether individuals are infected by parasitic mites.
We use wing length in helping to identify species.
When is the best time during the night to take photographs of moths?
Switch on your lights at dusk and switch them off at least half an hour before dawn.
This gives the moths time to fly away before birds get up and eat them.
Moths fly all night but seem to fly earlier in the night in the winter when it is cold.
In the summer when it is hot, they fly later. Thus, it is best to start photographing
them about an hour or two before dawn, say at 5:00AM. In the winter, you can photograph them
in the evening between 10:00PM and midnight. In short, because moths
tend to accumulate at lights all night, it is best to photograph them as late as possible, especially
on hot nights. If you don't want to get up early, then photograph them as late as you can.
How often should you monitor moths during the year?
As often as possible, but be consistent. Here are some possible options:
- Every night -- for the really dedicated, usually for a team of individuals working together.
- Every night except when you can't -- for the most dedicated fanatics.
- Every other night
- Two (consecutive) nights every week
- Once a week
- Two (consecutive) nights every other week
- Two consecutive nights once a month
- Once a lunar cycle (on the new, quarter or half moon but not the full)
- Once a month
If you can, increase your frequency in the spring from March - May, ideally to every other night or at least weekly.
