Day 9 - 30 Days Wild - Attracting Moths

* Today's random act of wildness - Attracting Moths *

Seeing I saw a few moths in the garden recently I decided to look on the internet for ways to attract moths in the garden. I found a great recipe for moth syrup on the Wildlife Trust's website and decided tonight I shall give it a go. Click here to see the link yourself :) 

Cinnabar moth in the garden today

Mullein Moth caterpillar - tiny compared to my thumb but will grow quite a bit.

* Here is the Moth Syrup recipe *

You will need:

• A bottle of red wine
• 1 kg Sugar
• Some cloth cut in strips
• Wooden Spoon
• Saucepan

*Note - I halved the recipe *

The ingredients

Step 1 - Pour wine into saucepan

Step 2 - Add the sugar

Step 3 - Stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Take off heat and cool.

Step 4 - Now add the cloth to the wine/sugar mix

Step 5 - Next take the cloth out of the saucepan

Step 6 - Last step hang the strips up in the garden. I have put it on the rotary line,
but you could put them on trees, fences etc...

Now all I have to do is wait until it gets dark to see what turns up...watch this space...

* 2 hour update *

After two hours and when it was dark we went to check on the strips, unfortunately we didn't get any moth's on them, but there was a few small ones flying around. After another half an hour we moved them to the fence at the bottom of the garden where there's a few trees. Again, nothing so we decided to give up on moths tonight...perhaps there was too much of a breeze in the air? Nevertheless we went exploring and came across these critters, including a rather large stone spider...

Centipede

House Spider

A lovely patterned slug

Stone spider enjoying some of the moth syrup that had run down the fence.