Scottish School of Forestry Open Day Inverness College 19th & 20th May

 By Stuart Bence

We managed to get a Skinner, Robinson and Heath trap out on the and had quite a good catch which included a Poplar Hawk-moth and we got about 80 moths over 2 nights of about 15 species.  So not huge numbers, but a nice selection to show people, including the very understanding Poplar Hawk-moth which has been well handled and photographed and drew a lot of attention.

On the Friday, we had about 30 school pupils and 10 teachers who all got a good look at the moths and we did a wee “Insect ID”, and “Importance of Insects” workshop which lasted for around 20 minutes, which we ran 6 times over the day.  The Poplar Hawk-moth also got his picture taken with some pupils for the local press so he might be in a local paper.

The Saturday although wet, proved very popular, and we had over 200 people come and see the moths and the stall.  There were also some other insects that I had a team of undergraduate students showing off. 

We gave out over 70 Orange Tip post cards and then sadly ran out, but still continued to tell people about the orange tip survey and we had a lot of people looking for information and we gave out loads of leaflets.

All seemed to go very well and we had a lot of interest in general, and hopefully generated a lot of interest in the Orange Tip survey.

 

Poplar Hawk-moth from 2015