Small brown hairy things that thrive after dark cannot expect to be loved. And when some of them nibble your best cashmere and munch through the allotment’s crops, their reputation might seem hopelessly lost.
Yet the moths of the United Kingdom are savouring their first real experience of public interest, and even approval, after years playing Cinderella to their dainty and brightly coloured daytime relatives, butterflies.
National Moth Night is now so popular, after just over a decade, that its organisers have had to take a year out to relaunch systems capable of managing thousands of eager recorders, including droves of easily disappointed children. The moth trap at Buckingham Palace, whose records include at least one exotic insect imported in the baggage of an African state visit, has been joined by counterparts at the Royal Courts of Justice, the House of Commons and a ring of coastal monitoring stations.
“People are beginning to talk seriously about mothing as the new birdwatching,” says Mark Parsons, head of moth conservation at Butterfly Conservation, a lively bunch with an increasing interest in the methods – and million-plus membership – of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. “Television, the internet and the huge appetite for natural history and green living are helping to expose myths about moths,”
