At the recent moth night I hosted where I work, we were fortunate to see several of the big and beautiful tulip-tree silkmoths. About an hour into the activity, a dozen or so people were gathered around a blacklight when one of the tulip-tree silkmoths arrived. It took a few minutes for it to settle, but everyone got really excited. Lots of cameras came out and everyone was sitting there with their cameras ready to snap a photo as soon as the moth stayed still long enough to get a decent photo. When it finally did settle on a net held by one of the volunteers, everyone surged toward the moth at once! Flashes flashed, there were hands and cameras everywhere, and by some miracle the moth wasn’t scared away by all the people suddenly crowded around it. I happened to be standing back a little ways, so I snapped a photo of the crowd around the moth once the it thinned enough to see what was going on:
Excited by moths
It makes me happy to see so many people completely enthralled by a single moth! That’s what I always hope to see at moth nights, but sometimes you get a crowd that just isn’t that into the experience. These people… Well, let’s just say they’re my kind of people. :)
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The Dragonfly Woman 
I’d love to do something like that with someone who knows about these things. Opportunities like this are rare in this part of France.
That’s unfortunate! We’ve got a pretty solid environmental education program in my state, and indeed in many other parts of the US, so that really helps with making these sorts of things available.
Right now I am spending more nights black lighting than sleeping here in Arizona and most black lights are more or less public. Some organized with Audubon, Southwest Wings or a public park or museum as hosts, some with my own tour groups. The biggest event was of course the Bugguide Gathering – we had over 50 people for 4 days at the Santa Rita Experimental Range
That BugGuide annual event sounded awesome! Would have loved to be there, but it was at a really inconvenient time when I just couldn’t take the time off. I’d have to say that I’m a little envious of your frequent blacklighting… I get to go again next week, but it’s only been three times this summer so far!
Do hope you’re getting SOME sleep though!