Since March, Backyard Butterflies has been hosting Monthly Mothing nights at Brumley Forest Nature Preserve, and the response has been wonderful. Each month we gather, we set up the sheets and lights, the lights beckon the moths, and the moths come forth from the night to commune with us. It has been a joy to share these evenings with so many curious and enthusiastic people. But for July, in recognition and in honor of National Moth Week, we have something a little different planned. Something we think is unique enough, special enough, that we have been genuinely excited about it since the moment it came together. The premise is simple: Midnight Mothing. We start when a traditional moth night ends!

Moth Lore and Wives’ Tales

There is some lore within the greater mothing community that I sometimes think of as more farmer’s almanac than settled science, firmly in the category of wives’ tale. One such bit of wisdom holds that there are fewer moths during a full moon than a new moon. I’m not sure there’s any scientific basis for the claim, and my own experience suggests that moon phase has little to do with numbers on a given night. What matters more is time of year, temperature, rainfall, humidity, the proximity of larval host plants, the emergence cycles of individual species, and probably a fair amount of dumb luck and the random chaos of the universe. Another piece of received wisdom is that different moths show up after midnight; some species apparently prefer to wait until 3–5 am to make an appearance. I used to treat this as plausible but unverified, too tangled up in variables to confirm. Then my husband took up mothing. He works an early shift that starts around 3 am, so he would go out in the dark hours just before leaving and observe whatever landed on our front porch under a simple LED light. He’d report back: many of the same species I knew, but always 2–4 I had never seen. Species that seemed to exist only after midnight.

Testing the Theory

That was enough to make me curious enough to test it myself. At survey sites for the North Carolina Under-reported County Moth Project (NCUCMP) last year, I worked in shifts with my survey partner Dean Furbish specifically to cover the early morning hours. Peak moth season, yes, but the difference was consistent and dramatic enough that the timing couldn’t be coincidental. The pre-dawn hours draw in many of the larger moths that people are always most excited to see. They arrive in numbers and seem content to simply rest on the sheet, with none of the frantic flying and banging that characterizes the earlier hours, knocking everyone else loose. The diversity shifts slightly, but what’s most striking is the sheer abundance. There is just more of everyone.

The pre-dawn hours draw in many of the larger moths that people are always most excited to see. There is just more of everyone.

The Thin Hour

The night itself is different at that hour, and that difference is hard to describe without sounding like you’ve gone a little mystical about bugs. But here it is anyway. There is a stillness that cannot be found at any other time of day. Not silence, the night is never fully silent, but an absence of human and critter noise. We diurnal creatures, humans, birds, squirrels, are remarkably loud. Between the chittering birds, gnawing squirrels, and quarreling hawks and crows, a summer afternoon in the backyard is anything but tranquil! But deep in the night, a point comes when even the whirring and buzzing and rasping of insects fades, and what remains is only the wind. The wind that isn’t moving, it’s there, like a veil. Whatever insects are still awake go about their business in complete silence, like monks in deep contemplation, having taken a vow. The Celtic Christians had a name for moments like this, thin places, thin hours, where the world becomes liminal, where mystery lingers at a threshold, beckoning reality to soften, and reality loosens just enough to reveal there is more.

The Celtic Christians had a name for moments like this — thin places, thin hours — where the world becomes liminal, where mystery lingers at a threshold, beckoning reality to soften, and reality loosens just enough to reveal there is more.

And then it becomes just you and the moths. No one else. In that space something quietly remarkable happens. You are not only observing them, you are meeting them, and in meeting them you meet yourself. There is a communion available here, with the One that connects all things, and the night is what creates the conditions for it: the shining light, the calm darkness, the silent meditative moths, and you, the observer, the recorder. It calls to mind Carl Sagan’s idea that “we are a way for the universe to know itself,” and there is something in that worth sitting with, the notion that the act of observing is itself meaningful, that attention participates in reality rather than just witnessing it. Perhaps this all sounds impossibly esoteric for simple moths, and fair enough, guilty as charged! While I am at the sheet I am focused on the work: getting each moth photographed cleanly so it can be identified and vetted later. My hands and eyes are busy. But that doesn’t mean my senses and soul are not aware of the energy around me, of the mood the night sets, of the deeper contemplative undertow running beneath the practical task. Both things are true at once. The work is the work, and the experience is something else entirely, and they coexist in harmony.

Both things are true at once. The work is the work, and the experience is something else entirely, and they coexist in harmony.

There is opportunity for connection out there, whether that means simply a human and a moth sharing a moment of mutual observation, or something richer that lives in the psyche, or the depth of one’s soul. Your mileage may vary. Mine has been considerable. I find it in the adorable fuzzy body of an Imperial Moth resting calmly on the sheet, simple and complete, and entirely Divine.

Which Brings Me to July

For several years, Backyard Butterflies hosted an Annual Moth Night right here in our own backyard in Hillsborough on the first Saturday of National Moth Week. When we held the first one in 2019, just a handful of people showed up. Last year it became clear that the popularity of moths had simply outgrown our backyard. We are so thrilled that these remarkable creatures have captured so many hearts that we found ourselves needing to grow the event along with our audience. So last year I started thinking about what comes next. A new format, a new scale, a new kind of invitation. When I brought the midnight mothing concept to Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC) and explained what the pre-dawn hours actually look like, what shows up, what the night feels like at 3 am, Laura was enthusiastic and ready to figure out how to make it happen. And so the Annual Moth Night is officially retired. In its place: Midnight Mothing, a partnership between Backyard Butterflies and TLC, held on TLC’s land this July during National Moth Week. Midnight to 3 am. We want to find out what moths and people will accept our unusual invitation. We are so excited to share this with fellow naturalists, moth-ers, the curious, dedicated insomniacs, and confirmed night owls. And of course, most importantly, with the moths themselves, those quiet, underestimated creatures who hold an irreplaceable place in the ecosystem and such a deep place in our hearts. Come meet us at the midnight hour. The sheet will be lit, the night will be still, and something worth staying up for will almost certainly find you.