Wednesday, March 26, 2008

I catch moths

Some of my young childhood memories are of catching moths. Sitting around in our house, my family would often find a moth fluttering around us. My sister and I were taught to catch them, then release them outside. That's what we always did with moths in the house, and we had a lot of practice.

Since moving into our current house, my partner and I have encountered the occasional moth. Of course, I catch them and take them outside. These encounters make the place feel more like home to me. (Home is where the moths are?)

My partner, on the other hand, is mildly disturbed by the entire business. From his perspectives, moths should never be in houses (his childhood house had no moths), and a catch-and-release campaign is not the normal way to respond to such things.

Fortunately, he is grateful I take care of the insect handling. So in the part of our relationship where we deal with moths in the house, my methods go.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, how does this teach us how to catch moths?

lyrl said...

It's not supposed to be an instructional post. I was just writing about remembering that I was taught to live capture and put them outside instead of killing them and putting them in the garbage.

For what it's worth, you walk up to a moth, put your hands over it, then close your hands. It may fly away, but moths never fly very far: just try again. Alternatively, you could put a jar over the moth and then slide a piece of paper under the jar. Either way, wah-lah! You've caught a moth!

Anonymous said...

Why not collect moths in electric light traps? These harmlessly catches moths and can be loads of fun finding the vast diversity of these little creatures. There are a vast variety of moths compared to butterflies, yet some more spectacular then butterflies. And when you return to these traps, you could examine them and release them, some by the hundreds!