Attracting moths ?

Question

im currently on my summer break and have nothing really interesting to do, i heard off a friend that apparently if you put honey down on the ground, on the bark of a tree it attracts butterflies at day, and moths at night, is this true ? the only previous method i know is to leave a window open with a light on at night to attract them in, bit obviously i dont want millions of moths flying round my bathroom lol .

are there any easy ways to attract them that dont involve finding large lamps, setting up a large white sheet for them to land on ?

and what is the largest species i could hope to find in Wales (UK)

Answer 1

Well I'm not sure if it works but why don't you try it and find out? It shouldn't do any harm other than you lose some honey. Maybe you can look up something online, like a spray you could spray outside and see if it attracts them ( if they even make that. If they don't see if you can come up with your own spray ^_~ ) The largest moth in Wales ( UK ) is the 4 inch rare Death's Head Hawk Moth. It is called death's head bc at the top of its head it has a little brown spot on it in the shape of a skull. My email is [e-mail] Email me if you find out anything else, this is interesting :P

Answer 2

The best thing you could do to start off with would be to visit the fantastic website of Butterfly Conservation, a charitable body which covers the whole of the UK for all matters relating to Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)

http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/

They've got some fab, free info on making sugar solution, wine-roping and (though it might not be of so much interest to you from what you've said) light-trapping

Correctly identifying moths can be a nightmare - there's just so many of them, and quite often they look similar to one another.  The largest I see regularly (I'm just south of the Bristol Channel) are the Elephant Hawk Moth - a spectacularly colourful beasty with a wingspan of about 2.5 inches whose equally interesting caterpillars can often be found feasting on garden fuschias; and the Poplar Hawk Moth which is even larger (it can have a wingspan of about 3.5 inches) and is easy to identify.  If you're lucky you might see a Privet Hawk Moth - an absolute giant with a wingspan of up to 4.5 inches or thereabouts.  The Death's Head Hawk Moth mentioned above is only an immigrant to this country and it isn't a commonly reported siting.

This site is great for id'ing the moths you find

http://ukmoths.org.uk/ as you can search by colour and characteristics - so no prior knowledge of species names is required.

I hope you have fun watching and id'ing moths - they're fascinating and often misunderstood creatures.