Wild About Gardens, for the benefit of people and wildlife

Take part in Garden Moths Count this summer

From 21 June to 6 July gardeners and their families are invited to take part in Garden Moths Count, an exciting nationwide survey of an overlooked but vital part of our garden biodiversity. There are more than 2,500 species of moths in Britain (compared with around 60 butterflies) and an ordinary back garden is likely to have over a hundred different moth species. Many people do not realise that moths can be just as colourful as butterflies and many are active during the day (in fact there are more day-flying moth species than butterflies).

As well as being beautiful and fascinating in themselves, moths and their caterpillars are an essential part of the garden eco-system. Moths act as pollinators when feeding on nectar and are a major source of food for bats, while both the adults and caterpillars are eaten by a range of garden wildlife including insects, toads, hedgehogs and garden birds. In particular their caterpillars are essential food for the nestlings of many bird species - each brood of blue tits eats about 15,000 caterpillars!

An alarming number of moth species have declined dramatically in recent decades, for example the once common Garden Tiger with its familiar brown ?woolly bear? caterpillar has decreased by almost 90% since the 1960s. Meanwhile a few species, like the spectacular Humming-bird Hawk-moth, have actually been seen more frequently in our gardens as summers have become warmer.

Garden Moths Count will help to track these changes by looking at the distribution of twenty species commonly found in gardens. Anyone can take part, young or old, and you don?t need to be an expert or have special equipment. See the Garden Moths Count website (www.mothscount.org) to find out how to attract moths (using a torch or fizzy drink!), identify your moths, and send in your results to put your garden on the national moth map. Garden Moths Count is part of the Moths Count project, led by Butterfly Conservation, which aims to improve knowledge and conservation of moths in the UK. For more details, including other activities to join in, see the project website at www.mothscount.org

You can also go to the Garden Moths Count website to help track the hummingbird hawkmoth, which is being featured in BBC Radio 4 series ?World on the Move?. In association with the programme, and via a link from the BBC website, there will be an online survey all year of the moth?s occurrence in the UK, with an online map tracking their arrival across the UK.