@mikeburrell recently posted a how-to on building your own moth trap, including tips on where to source materials. These traps are fantastic and using them allows you to collect insects throughout the night, which is helpful as different species fly at different times. So if you are relying on a sheet and staying up until 1:00 am, you still may be missing some species. You also may get more sleep by using a trap....

One option to consider for the trap is a garbage can with a tight-fitting lid, rather than a muck bucket. The advantage of the garbage can is that you can store most of the material in the can, and leave it outside.

Also, as Mike notes in his post, mercury vapour lights are becoming hard to find. High quality UV bulbs are also good for traps. Bioquip, based in Los Angeles, will ship to Canada. I haven't found a Canadian vendor for this product. If anyone has any other suggestions, please add a comment below.

National Moth Week runs each year in the last full week of July. This year (2020) it begins this coming weekend (July 18-26).

In the past few years, Ontario has lead all Canadian provinces/territories and American states in number of observations submitted and species reported in iNaturalist - let's see if we can do it again!

If you want to follow the week's results, check out the NMW 2020 Ontario project here: https://inaturalist.ca/projects/national-moth-week-2020-ontario

To participate, just report your moth observations during the week to iNaturalist.

Participants are encouraged to register their public or private "events" here: http://nationalmothweek.org/register-a-nmw-event-2020/

Happy Moth-ing!

A surprising number (to me) of new moths are added to the list of Ontario species regularly - including at least three new species in the last month or so. To help keep track of developments, David Beadle and Mike King have teamed up with Phill Holder to publish an updated provincial checklist. Here are the details from the publisher:

"As more and more naturalists discover the enjoyment of identifying and appreciating moths, comes the inevitable urge to put together a personal list, but first there has to be a definitive provincial list. The authors have researched all published records and private collections to publish the first complete, and most up to date checklist of the 3187 verified moth species recorded in Ontario.

The main checklist includes photographic plates with examples of the family of each species. Separate sections include photographic additions to the list and a few records awaiting verification. All these records include dates, locations, and finders’ names.

With more than 230 photographs, we believe this checklist will be invaluable to all moth enthusiasts from beginner to expert and is spiral bound for easy use."

The checklist will be available August 1, and it is available for pre-order here.