Ross Castle, Killarney National Park, 5.30am. The pelting rain subsides to a ceaseless drizzle as I make my way up a muddy track to meet Stephen Cotter. It’s winter dark and I can only make out the periphery of his face, he gestures towards the oak wood where his moth trap - a large lightbox sitting on the damp layers of leaf litter - glows brightly. It’s as if the moon has fallen to the ground.
It’s my first time mothing, and within minutes, I realise it is a whole other world. For so many of us, moths are either dry, dead brown things in the corner of a windowsill or irritating destroyers of our wool clothes and carpets. The truth is that three moth species, which evolved to feed on cattle hides and sheep’s wool, come into our homes to eat our clothes. It’s a tiny percentage of the 1,600 species found throughout Ireland. Many of these are dazzling and exquisite, nature’s equivalent of Parisian haute couture.
My guide in Killarney, Stephen Cotter, spends his days working as an orthodontist but his nights searching for moths. His nocturnal work has expanded our understanding of moths in Kerry; he’s recorded over 400 species in the county and has even discovered new species in Killarney.
The ground is soaking and our footsteps make soft sucking sounds as we walk into the old woodland towards the trap. Moths are drawn to the light, and below it, a series of funnels brings them into a box lined with egg cartons, where they will remain unharmed until safely released. Moths rarely agitate and don’t flutter away when the trap is opened but remain calm. (You’d swear they secretly enjoy being admired.)
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The vocabulary of moth names is poetic and humorous and usually denotes some enchanting visual particularity. Stephen lists off some examples: Brocade moths, Muslin Moths, Northern Rustic, Border Rustic, Crescent Dart, Heart and Dart. Footman moths, whose wings are held tightly against their long bodies, resemble a Victorian liveried footman waiting for his master. There’s Scorched Carpets, True Lovers Knot, Mother Shipton, Puss Moth, the Confused, the Suspected, Pug Moths, Chimney Sweeper, Pine Carpets, Peach Blossom and the Sprawler.
The Common Wainscot moth, Stephen tells me, is creamy brown with light veins along the wings, creating a pattern similar to wood panelling on a wall. The caterpillars live inside rushes and if the water levels are high from rain, they can use the reed as a kind of snorkel through which they breathe.
We kneel down around the trap and Stephen spots a moth that would look at home in a Star Wars film. He tells me it’s called Angle Shades. It looks like an autumnal withered leaf with two eye-like markings across the centre. This one may have migrated from the Continent, along with billions of other moths who come to Ireland for the winter.
If you walk through a wood, what appears real to the eye – the leaves, the bark, the lichen – may actually be moths. Stephen lifts a Feathered Thorn moth out of the trap. It’s a rich auburn brown with dark markings. And then, as if performing a magic trick, he lays it in the fallen oak leaves and it melts away, hidden by its surroundings.
They are masters of camouflage because so many species want to eat them. Bats, birds, parasitic wasps, badgers – these predators will eat as many moths as possible, whatever stage they’re at, be it larvae, caterpillars or adults. This evolutionary pressure has driven an explosion of species in various niches as they try to find different strategies to pass on their genes and avoid being predated. A rich, diverse habitat like this oak wood will be home to hundreds of moths in one area; if you wipe the slate clean to create monoculture fields or forests, you’ll get just a handful.
On the shores of Lough Allen in Roscommon, farmer Tommy Early has been laying moth traps around his farm for the past two decades. He says opening them the next day is like waking up on Christmas morning – you never know what you’ll find, and before you know it, three hours have passed just looking at them.
[ Hummingbird hawk moths beat their wings so fast they appear as a brownish blurOpens in new window ]
Tommy moves the traps around his farm and depending on where he leaves them – besides one of his 19 ponds, in his 20-acre rewetted bog, or inside his two-decade-old oak wood – he’ll find an array of species. Their markings can be fun. Tommy once spotted a Spectacle moth, a dark, angular species with tufts of scales on its body resembling a pair of glasses; he says it was as if the creature was staring straight up at him from the trap.
In his book, ‘Emperors, Admirals and Chimney Sweepers: The Weird and Wonderful Names of Butterflies and Moths’, author Peter Marren writes about a mint-coloured moth, flecked with black, with the delightful name ‘Merveille du Jour’, the wonder of the day. It’s puzzling why it was called that because it actually flies by night (it is, writes Marren, a’ Merveille de la Nuit’), and its Latin name, ‘aprilina’, from the word ‘April’, is confusing because the moth doesn’t appear until October.
The Merveille is uncommon here and is much sought after by moth lovers. In Killarney, with the darkness abating, I hear Stephen gasp enthusiastically. He spots a Merveille in the trap and lifts it slowly onto his palm. It is so pretty up close, with a luxurious sheen. Placed against the mint lichen on an oak tree, this wondrous moth disappears as if it isn’t there.
