Moths are much more numerous than butterflies, with hundreds of species likely to visit your garden during the course of a year. But most of them fly at night.
The best way to see moths in action is to wander round your garden with a torch after dark. A humid, moonless night is best; you will be surprised by how many moths drift silently over the shrubs and flower beds, dropping down to sample the nectar. They usually visit pale, strongly-scented flowers that show up at night.
IDENTIFICATION: BUTTERFLY OR MOTH?
Some colourful moths can be confused with butterflies, but their antennae or feelers will distinguish them. All our butterflies have a little knob at the end of each antenna, whereas most moths’ antennae are hair-like or feathery. In addition, almost all moths rest with their wings flat or folded over the body like a tent, with only the uppersides visible. Although many butterflies bask with their wings open, almost all of them rest with their wings closed vertically above the body, so that only the undersides are visible.
The feathery antennae of many male moths pick up the scent of the females.
The clubbed nature of a butterfly’s antennae are clearly seen in this skipper.
At rest, only the uppersides of the swallowtailed moth’s wings are visible.
At rest, only the undersides of the orange tip butterfly’s wings are visible.
Concealed or conspicuous?
Most of our moths are decidedly sombre in colour, enabling them to rest undetected on fences and tree trunks or amongst the vegetation by day. Some of their camouflage is truly amazing. They are able to pick out the most suitable backgrounds on which to settle down, and those that resemble bark can even detect the direction of crevices and shuffle themselves around so that their wing patterns are aligned with those of the bark.
Many other moths actually look so similar to twigs or even dead leaves that it takes a really sharp pair of eyes to spot them at rest during the daytime.
However, some garden moths are brightly coloured and very conspicuous indeed. This usually indicates that they are distasteful or even poisonous. Tiger moths and magpie moths are good examples. Once they have tasted them, birds quickly learn to leave these brightly-coloured moths alone.
The lilac beauty moth’s wings blend in perfectly with a pile of fallen leaves lying in a corner of the garden.
Pale thoracic hairs and buff wing tips give the buff-tip moth more than a passing resemblance to a broken twig.
The garden tiger moth is extremely conspicuous. This indicates to birds that it is a very distasteful insect.
HUNGRY CATERPILLARS
Whereas few butterfly caterpillars feed on our garden plants, hundreds of moth caterpillars find our cultivated flowers and vegetables to their liking. In addition to nibbling the leaves, they chew their way through roots and can even be found inside the trunks and branches of trees. Some caterpillars, including those of the mullein and magpie moths, can cause noticeable damage to their food plants, but very few species are sufficiently numerous to spoil the look or the productivity of gardens.
The larva of the vapourer moth feeds on a wide range of plants and it can damage orchards. Its hairs can cause serious irritation to the skin if it is touched.