We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we live and pay our respects to Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging.
We are citizen scientists who care for nature generally, with a prime interest in Lepidoptera and Rainforests.
Our objective in establishing this website is to record the moths and their caterpillars that we sight here on our rural property on the Dorrigo Plateau, NSW. There are 82 known Australian Moth Families. In addition to securing photographs of the live moths, we plan to document any information of interest about species we observe here.
In our childhood years our interest in lepidoptera began as collectors. Later we became conservationists and no longer held any interest in killing moths or building pinned collections. Collections of pinned specimens have been necessary to assist scientific study and continue to be important for Museums and scientific organisations today. Rarely is this process needed now for citizen scientists. A collection of digital photographs enables long term retention without risk of damage or loss of colour over time. Our goal is to do all we can to assist species to thrive and maintain healthy populations.
When using the moth light we ensure it is switched off while still dark to encourage visiting moths to take flight again before morning so they don’t become breakfast for the birds. This risk is removed if using a moth trap where moths securely shelter unharmed and can later be photographed in daylight prior to release next evening.
We also have an interest in learning as much as we can about the first three stages of a moth’s life cycle (egg, caterpillar and pupa/chrysalis). Learning larval food plants also gives us the ability to plant more of them on the property.
We have been photographing Dorrigo Plateau Lepidoptera since 2004 and have a large database of photographs, including some rare and unnamed species.
Our Dorrigo Butterfly website is http://butterfliesdorrigo.weebly.com/
Our property
Our hilly 8 hectares (20 acres) property sits at 790 – 840m asl on the Dorrigo Plateau opposite a small National Park. It is part of the the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests.
Temperature ranges from -5° to 30° with frost in open areas in winter. Average annual rainfall over the last 50 years is 2000mm. Water drains from surrounding hills to flow down a dry creek gully following heavy rains.
Habitats
Different environments on the property support a diverse number of wildlife and invertebrate species.
Warm temperate rainforest covers half of the property with a small area of subtropical rainforest around a former dam, now a pond supporting an abundance of aquatic life. In 2017 the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage approved a Voluntary Conservation Agreement (VCA) on this rainforest remnant to protect it in perpetuity.
An area of grassland in two of our ex-paddocks provides flight corridors for butterflies and moths. It supports those species that feed on grasses and the edge of the developing rainforest. Clearings under two power lines also provide Lepidoptera flight corridors.
We are revegetating sub-tropical and warm temperate rainforest on approximately 1.5 – 2 hectares (4 – 5 acres) of former kikuyu covered paddocks. Frost occurs where there is no tree cover which means first planting pioneer species to protect more vulnerable rainforest species. Paths are maintained through the planted areas to assist with maintenance and allow viewing of the emerging young rainforest. As it develops so the number and diversity of wildlife species increases.
The first plantings were made in 2016 when we received a 10-year grant through Jaligiirr Biodiversity Alliance Inc. to plant a rainforest wildlife corridor connecting the local NSW National Park with our remnant rainforests. These were cold hardy local pioneer species planted along the western boundary of our smallest paddock. The following year rainforest species were planted amongst the ‘cold hardy’ plantings. Much of the rest of this former paddock has been planted with rainforest species. There is also a considerable amount of self-seeding now happening as birds return to our property.
Many of the rainforest species are food plants for moths (and butterflies) with the number of moth species coming to the moth light having increased over the years.
