Monday 13 July 2009

Moth traps


I've been looking on the internet at the multitude of moth traps now available, my home made trap worked fine when I used it but I have to assume that the latest designs are carefully researched and field tested so I thought instead of paying anything up to £400+ for one I would study the designs and try to emulate one of them. I'm not good at DIY but I was lucky enough to have a suitable wooden box and a bit of perspex so I decided to build a 'replica' of a Skinner trap(see photos above). The new trap certainly looks better than the old one and is much easier to set up but would it catch more moths than the other?.
I placed it out in the garden at 9pm till 3:30am in the same spot I had placed my other trap but when I went out to check how well I had done I was to say the least disappointed. There was a solitary Swallowtail, 3 Willow Beauty, 1 Riband Wave and 3 assorted moths as yet to be identified, ok there were also a lot of flies, a couple of ants and a dozen or so micro-moths but nowhere near the amount caught 2 nights ago. I know that it's a couple of degrees cooler tonight but I expected better results from more effort and that hasn't been the case.....I will attempt to put both traps out at different ends of the garden next time so I can compare results more efficiently.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Ian
    Is that an Energy saving bulb you are using?

    I'd recommend purchasing a 160w MBT which is what I use here http://www.pwbelg.clara.net/mercury/mbt/index.html
    £25.95 for complete wiring and bulb, which I think is quite inxpensive, and you can expect pretty good catches.
    All the best

    Ben.

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