Moths of Greater Austin, TX's Journal

I hope those of you that attended one or more of our National Moth Week 2024 public events had as much fun as Wendy (@wendelia), Curtis (@cmeckerman), and I (@jcochran706) did. It was great to see everyone who came out for moths and other nocturnal insects.

We were lucky to have access to Concordia University thanks to Caitlyn (@edwards_plateau), especially since we set up under cover during an absolute downpour (and still got moths!). And, we explored one of the newest preserves in Austin, Red Bluff Nature Preserve, with the help of John Davis (@jdavisz). Two favorite localities of mine finished off our week, Roy G Guerrero Colorado River Metro Park and Bastrop State Park.

I put together a Collection Project for our National Moth Week 2024 public events. A summary of the numbers: 19 observers, almost 2000 moth observations, and over 300 moth species. That's quite good! I hope this inspires more people to join us next year.

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/national-moth-week-2024-gatx-events

Greetings fellow moth-ers. I put together a project that is all inclusive for moth observations in the Greater Austin, TX (GATX) region for Jul 20-28, National Moth Week 2024. Currently, the species total stands at 500. Great job!

The most interesting numbers to me were moth observations and species by GATX county. Not surprisingly, Travis and Williamson counties, with more people, contributed the bulk of moth observations. And, our public mothing event elevated the Bastrop County numbers nicely. I think the challenge is to hold public moth events in the underrepresented GATX counties, to help local naturalists get excited about these cool nocturnal insects and expand the knowledge of what's out there. Anybody else with me? If so, and you can suggest places to set up in these counties, that would be great.

GATX County (moth observation total, moth species total, population)

Bastrop (733, 214, 106K)

Blanco (5, 5, 12.4K)

Burnet (6, 6, 52.5K)

Caldwell (3, 3, 47.8K)

Hays (29, 22, 269K)

Travis (1715, 295, 1330K)

Williamson (1407, 309, 671K)

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/national-moth-week-2024-greater-austin-tx

P.S. It's not too late to get involved in National Moth Week 2024, as there are many moths that need identifications.

I, with gracious help from good mothing friends, sometimes organize events for groups that have never done the activity by setting up lights and sheets to attract bugs. Attendees are encouraged to bring a camera, camera flash, flashlight, headlamp, etc. for photographing insects, followed by submitting the photos to iNaturalist for bug identification. Many first-timers bring smartphones for cameras, and sometimes, because of difficulties with focusing and lighting, enthusiasm for viewing bugs can turn to disappointment, including when darker photos languish unidentified on iNaturalist.

Accurate moth identification on iNaturalist, whether via Computer Vision (iNat’s AI program) or human help, depends on acceptable lighting, zooming, and cropping of photos. Previously, my best iPhone camera moth photo results involved hand-holding a small rechargeable LED video/camera light (e.g., VIJIM VL100C, ~20 USD on Amazon) on a moth sheet-bug while zooming in at 3x, no flash. But it’s a juggling act for a clumsy operator like me to position the light and camera, and make sure the bug is in focus for the shot before trying to press the iPhone-screen shutter button. Fortunately, I recently found a smartphone accessory that makes the process easier and improves my photos, while still being reasonable in cost.

Ulanzi CG02 Smartphone Camera Shutter Handle Grip, Bluetooth Control, Adjustable Fill Light

Approximately 25 USD on Amazon

The first photo above shows the front of the accessory, unattached to a smartphone. You can see the white, circular fill light, which can be toggled to three levels of brightness.

The second photo is looking down on the unattached accessory. The back button (top button as viewed in the photo) is the fill light switch, and the other button is the shutter button, activated just like you'd push the button on a regular camera, after you connect it via Bluetooth on your phone. To the right of the buttons is a cold shoe, where you could attach another light source. If you think the Ulanzi accessory looks rather large in this photo, that's because it houses an integral rechargeable battery to power the fill light.

The third photo shows the accessory mounted via its expandable clamp to an iPhone 12, ready to take nocturnal insect photos!

I tested the Ulanzi accessory using my iPhone 12 camera (12 MP), 3x zoom, no flash. Bluetooth pairing to my iPhone for using its shutter button was easy. The fill light was at level three, the brightest setting. Below are some recent photos I took of moths that present flat targets, so it's relatively easy to focus on them and light them with the Ulanzi-iPhone setup. I used the iPhone photo editor in a very limited, quick way to: straighten, crop (4:3), and auto-adjust light and color. Not bad photos for a smartphone on relatively small subjects!

I refer you to the link below so you can further evaluate my smartphone photos using the Ulanzi accessory. This will give you a chance to explore overall photo quality, including where things start to deteriorate as moth subjects get smaller and smaller. I suspect much of that quality degradation is due to the 12 MP phone camera. With a better smartphone camera, micromoth photos may improve. Encouragingly, the iNaturalist Computer Vision successfully identified almost all of the photos presented in the set. That's a good testimony to both the camera setup and iNat's AI ID algorithm.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2024-08-14&place_id=any&q=cg02&user_id=jcochran706&verifiable=any

Finally, I am not a photography expert, just an enthusiastic lifelong learner, so if anyone else has suggestions for taking better smartphone camera photos for nocturnal insects, please put them in the Comments section of the Journal Post. Bonus points awarded for IDing the moths in the post photos!