The mothing law of diminishing returns

There comes a point in any long-running biological recording project when “new” becomes a rather more interesting word. This year is my 9th year of mothing, I started on 24th July 2018. Most years I count around 8000-9000 specimens of 300-370 species. This year has been a recordbreaker with almost 15,000 moths recorded in the garden so far and passed 400+ distinct species. I’ve even managed to see 40 or so NFGs (new-for-garden) species. In previous years that number has been way higher, but like I say it’s a law of diminishing returns. Golden Twin-spot Every year the pool of moths that can possibly be “new” gets smaller. Once I’ve recorded a species in the garden, catching it again doesn’t make it an NFG, however pleased you might be to see it. The early years of a garden moth list are the easy years. There are plenty of low-hanging fruit. Although it’s a learning curve when it comes to identification, especially of the micro moths and early on, one tends to focus on the bigger moths…