Gardens and Moths

I was outside by the wildflower garden this evening around 9:30 - it was almost dark - but light enough to see pretty well without lights. The moon, the half that was visible, was out.

So I hear all of this buzzing and it looked sort of like hummingbirds at the daylilies nearby - but it wasn't. It was some kind of hawk moth with a striped body. There seemed to be several. Later there was another kind of smaller darker moth at the same kind of lily.

I looked it up online and it sounds like they like to lay their eggs on cherry trees. There are several of those trees nearby. I'll have to look when it's light out.

"Aussies urged to eat moths"

Australians are being urged to get rid of a plague of moths - by eating them.

The "munch a moth" campaign is being led by Jean-Paul Bruneteau, 51, a French-born chef, reports the Daily Telegraph.

He first began eating the brown bogong moths 11 years ago while researching a book on bush tucker eaten by Aborigines.

"They have a lovely popcorn flavour, like hazelnut," he said.

Mr Bruneteau, who has run "bush tucker" restaurants in Sydney and Paris, suggests pulling off the furry wings, then popping the moths in the oven for three minutes in a splash of canola oil.

Alternatively the chef, recommends putting them through a coffee blender and sprinkling them into an omelette, pancake or crepe.

Martyn Robinson, a naturalist who works at the Australian Museum in Sydney, is another dedicated moth muncher, preferring to catch them on his windowsill, hold them by the wings then pop them in his mouth.

But Mr Robinson's initial enthusiasm for eating the native moths waned after he discovered that they contain high levels of arsenic, the result of eating farm crops sprayed with pesticides.

He also warns about their fat content: one study found that 3oz of bogong moth abdomen contains three times as much fat as a Big Mac.