Moth Night in Memory of Victor Fazio III
Mothing...it gets you in! The excitement of seeing an old favourite return to the sheet, finding new species in your own backyard, or simply one that you recognise and know by name just never gets old!
Many of you who have joined the project in honour of Vic were motivated by his super quick (usually the same day) identifications, often with brief explanation or supporting link.
Huge thank you to everyone who has joined the project, submitted and/or identified the many observations being added. Please feel free to comment on improvements that could be made for next year...
Hope the weather is kind and the moths are plentiful....It's going to be a fun 'mothing marathon' for 10 nights ....Enjoy! ..
Cheers to Vic!
Comments
This is great fun, I'm having a blast! It is a lovely reminder of how prolific and significant Vic was for iNat, when I see him still leading the observations or identifications for many of the moths I'm observing.
Not sure if it is the same in other areas of Aus at the moment, but in Victoria the conditions are great, both the local weather and the longer climate conditions leading up to now are great for moths. There's new moths coming in every night. Not even halfway through and we're well on the way to 1000 species. Keep it up, everyone!
First time I've tried to do mothing consecutively for this 'mothing marathon' and although I'm missing some sleep, I've already photographed a bunch of new (for me) species I've not seen before!
I think it's awesome that we've been able to generate such a huge amount of sightings in a relatively short period of time and it's good to see so many people getting involved.
For me personally, although I didn't know Vic outside of iNat, I have really missed his presence and this has been a really great event in his honour. I feel like he'd be pretty happy with it!! :)
Looking forward to seeing the final species count!
Ahh Nick you're gunning it. I tried to keep up but had to have one early night - the lack of sleep caught up with me! It was a good night too...
Haven't cracked an all-nighter yet, tonight is the last chance.. Not much on tomorrow either..
I reckon I'm cooked now.
Unfortunately, rained out in Tamworth for the final three nights...but has been good to catch up on some much needed sleep. :-)
Newbie here..
Can we post obs (taken during Victors marathon) after tonight?
I'm slow, behind & have run out of time.
But have thoroughly enjoyed myself and learnt a lot!!!!
I'm fairly certain you can @marion179
As long as they are dated between 20 - 30th Jan you should be fine.
Pleased you enjoyed the experience, there really are some fascinating moths!
Yeah so any observation taken before midnight tonight! One hour to go (here). I have the moth light on at home, and new stuff is showing up! That's the fun of mothing. Will upload tomorrow.
I was lucky to add another four species between rain showers tonight.
I have just returned from Tasmania with my family and we had the moth sheet up every night for the 10 day period. First time mothing in Tasmania. Will be uploading the observations in the coming days .....some familiar ones from Victoria but also lots of new ones.
Nudging 1600 species. @a_kurek i reckon we will go over that when you get to post your 10 days worth.
Fabulous effort by all our observers and identifiers. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
@dlync ...agree was a really great effort by everyone.
@dlync Lyn, I wonder if you feel up to making another project for the same period, for everything BUT moths for the current members of this project (if that's possible)?
I observed many more orders than just Moths during that time, and Victor was interested in more than just moths.
It'd be interesting to see what other project participants saw while being involved in this project.
eg I've dedicated this to Victor as well: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/172946190
Cheers
Brett
Hi @ellurasanctuary, apologies for not responding sooner. Just looking a setting up project in memory of Victor again and came across your message. Fairly sure I had other critters come to the light also, so that sounds like a great idea. I'm thinking 8-18th December. Looking back at my observation calendar on iNat I had a lot more moths in December then January. What are your thoughts on the best month to run the project? Weather is just starting to warm up here at night, and today has been over 30C so hopefully a nice lot of moths come to the light tonight.
Regards,
Lyn
Looking at the Lepidoptera page it's quite surprising that April seems to be the best month:
https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/taxa/47157-Lepidoptera
I'd say people's time would be torn between kids & Xmas vs this. So probably better in Jan when the festivities are finished.
If we don't get more rain, it's going to be a dismal year for flowers, so may reduce Lepidoptera numbers.
Yes it's hot here too, but cold nights.
Thanks for that suggestion, April sounds good!
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