-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Diamond-back Moths (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter smokenack
- Start date
Even before turning the trap light on I counted at least 50 in my garden yesterday. There's nothing special about my garden, just a normal small urban space with a few shrubs. There are c.100 gardens in my street giving c.5000 moths in my street. There's roughly 700 streets in Southend giving 3,500,000 in Southend alone. A very conservative estimate I should think, I'm seeing them everywhere. Must be billions in the country at the moment.
RichardBaatsen
Well-known member
I am getting them here in Gloucestershire (9 miles south of Gloucester) 120+ the night before last and about 65 last night... I am sure this is an underestimate as they were very active.
Gastronaut
_______________
They seemed to pass through here on the Lizard in one big wave on Monday. Started the morning with just a few around, by the afternoon there were hundreds and by evening there were thousands. Walking round the fields I was flushing a dozen or so from every metre square, and I've got 10 acres here about a mile from the coast. There were about 250 in/on the trap in the morning, but they were dispersing rapidly and had plenty of daylight to leave before I got there. Also 7 silver y and a dark sword grass in the trap.
By Tues afternoon most had gone, still plenty compared to normal but only about 10% of peak numbers.
A few painted lady about on Tuesday and noticeably more on Wednesday when seen arriving over the sea from east.
By Tues afternoon most had gone, still plenty compared to normal but only about 10% of peak numbers.
A few painted lady about on Tuesday and noticeably more on Wednesday when seen arriving over the sea from east.
Last edited:
On a walk last night I went 0.4mile along the edge of a crop field - rape seed crop on one side and long grass on the other. In that distance I saw 8000+ just on and by the pathway, it makes me wonder just how many there would have been in the whole field.
What's their usual status here? I'm not a moth person but after seeing so many comments about these from moth-cathcing Twitterati I figured the tiny moths that were everywhere when I was out the other night were this sp. I caught one and indeed it was. I guess the number in the country right now must be in the hundreds of millions, or perhaps even into 10 figures (a [US] billion+)
dantheman
Bah humbug
As mentioned those kind of numbers could have consequences on certain plants/crops.
It might be interesting to calculate their total biomass and work if it it exceeds, say, the biomass of all the hipsters in the UK, or other higher level predators, and the relative damage they could cause.
Similar threads
