Written by OLC Board member Jim Nardi

Around 9:45PM when we turned on the black lights to attract local insects at OLC's Moth Night Out event, our first visitors were clouds of caddisflies and rove beetles along with a few stink bugs and click beetles. We were really pleased to see so many different insects.

Around 10:45PM the larger moths and beetles began to appear. Our two noteworthy visitors at that time were a Hydrangea Sphinx Moth and a stunning Imperial Moth. Wild hydrangeas that are the host plants of the Hydrangea Sphinx Moth grow on the steep banks of the two little streams nearby. Caterpillars of Imperial Moths are not as finicky about their choice of food plants and will feed on leaves of many different trees.

Who knows what other insects might have shown up by midnight, 1:00AM, 2:00AM, or 3:00AM? By creating islands of refuge for our wild companions, maybe we can counter the devastating effects of light pollution and pesticides on our once abundant insect populations.