National Moth Night: Bats and Moths - Sat 15th May

Saturday 15th May will mark this year's National Moth Night, organised by Atropos (the specialist journal for butterfly, moth and dragonfly enthusiasts) and Butterfly Conservation to celebrate the diversity of the UK's Moths. This year's theme is Moths and Bats, and so BCT has joined in the fun to help organise a number of guided night walks around the country in Nottingham, Manchester, Newcastle and London. See the Moth Night site for further information and other local events.

Moths and bats are closely linked ecologically (moths are an in important food source for many bat species) and both share common problems in terms of the human pressure they face, both have shown long-term declines in numbers due to widespread landscape and habitat loss, particularly over the last 40 years. As well as inheriting a history of false truths leading to misconceptions about these creatures, for example, only 2 out of the 2,500 species of UK moths feed upon clothes.

National Moth Night: Bat and Moths celebrates these misunderstood animals and is a UK-wide surveying event that aims to reach and involve as many volunteers as possible and record as many sightings as possible. There is always hope that each year a new population will be discovered, in fact a population of the White Prominent had been discovered in Ireland in 2008 (a species not seen in the British Isles for 70 years!).

Anyone can join in - So why not go for a nice evening stroll on one of the bat and moth walks or hold your own 'garden night-safari' For further information about how to take part, public events, moth recording techniques and moths in general can be found at www.nationalmothnight.info