I attended an interesting webinar last night, all about how engaging with nocturnal insects can improve wellbeing and help us feel more connected to nature. Being diurnal animals, we humans are naturally cautious of the dark, and especially as we head towards the spooky -ber months, tales of bats, cats, ghouls and ghosts probably don’t do a great deal to encourage us out into the inky blackness. Personally I enjoy dusk and dawn, and love looking up at the stars on a clear winter’s night; spotting the constellations is like seeing old friends in a crowd. Now the evenings are starting earlier and earlier I am taking the dogs out with my head torch, and as it has a red bulb, I get to glimpse bats, deer, badgers, foxes and Tawny Owls before they get a whiff of the labradors and head off. Back in lockdown, my friend and I used to go for walks with his thermal imaging device which was great fun. I am also a big fan of moths and beetles so the webinar, titled Discoveries After Dark: How Insects Connect Us to Nature was preaching to the choir as far as I was concerned.
Dr Chris Barnes, based at the University of Derby, is a Chartered Psychologist and has led a number of studies on how people – particularly young people – feel having spent time in nature during the night. Dr Barnes is also a dark skies advocate, and pointed out that going on a moth or bat walk means we also take in the stars and planets, and gain an understanding of how light pollution affects all of us, but especially those creatures reliant on the moon and stars for navigation or breeding.
Thankfully, encouraging a healthy enjoyment of the nighttime in a safe and sensitive manner doesn’t require lots of expensive kit or disruption. It was found that even the simplest activities such as looking at a moth’s wings, or watching craneflies with a torch, or seeing bats zipping overhead can help youngsters realise that wildlife doesn’t stop when the lights go off, and that there’s a whole world of interesting adaptations to investigate.
I did a quick map of the information which was nice to do as my brain is a little fried from Climate Week NYC.
Have you been to a moth trapping event? or a Nightjar walk?
