At Night they take Flight

[spooky1]

I collect and ride motorcycles and my favorite time to ride is after dark. Paying attention over the years I have noticed that during the hot months of July and August here in the Midwest there are some nights with almost no insect movement while on a previous or the next night the air will be teaming with these flying pests. Being a snake hunter that has frequented the desert of West Texas to night hunt I noticed that barometric pressure and the moon phase played a big part on when snakes would be on the move after dark. I'm wondering if there is a known mechanism that sends insects into the air so I can perhaps plan my bike rides around them? I can easily monitor the weather and barometric changes as well as the moon phases so if anyone has created a formula or technique please post it in response. Perhaps entomologists have a technique to aid them on their hunting adventures that I can use in reverse? Having an obsessive personality and having never lost the need to know about everything I sometimes grab my camera and 7 year old grand daughter and head to a park for an adventure. Childhood is the best time to instill a burning desire to know so I have had her on her knees with me exploring the realm exposed by lifting a rock or counting the number of living things on the trunk of a tree. She is learning to look beyond the obvious for the real rewards that most others never see. Questioning the why's of everything will no doubt drive more than a couple of her teachers up the wall but she will also learn to find her own answers along the way. I'm not reliving my childhood through her but I admit that it's fun being reminded of how exciting it was for me to learn new things back then. I had a Leave It To Beaver upbringing not knowing at the time how blessed I was so doing what I can to expose her to a better time can only provide a glimpse into all sorts of possibilities for her to share with others at a time when some want to erase our past with their revisionist history. Now, back to my preparations for tonight's adventure into the unknown.

[wollastoni]

Welcome here and interesting question. I am sure moth collectors can help you.

From my observations, warm and foggy nights are perfect to attract more moths with lights. I am not sure if this is due to light being more efficient with fog, or due to more moths on wings during those nights.

You are 100% right to teach your grand daughter discovering the treasures of nature for "the real rewards that most others never see", well said ! I have a 3 year old boy and he already knows the difference between many plants and insects, and he likes that.

[Paul K]

Insects are usually more active when cloudy , humidity night with no moon ( new moon ).
They are attracted to the lights
Paul

[wollastoni]

Indeed

But are moths more active or just more attracted by lights which are more effective in such conditions ?
Anyone knows ?

[Paul K]

I have read somewhere if I remember well that moths are navigate by moon and star light , somewhat same as bees navigate by Sun.
In cloudy nights at new moon they are attracted to the lights confused as they think it is a moon or star. Light collecting with full moon is very uneffective even with the cloudy sky.
Perhaps moths can detect the moonlight other then seeing it same way as we do. Bees for example can see the Sun thru the clouds.

[timmsyrj]

Very interesting question indeed, however it raises another question, do you find more snakes on the nights with no insects flying or on nights when they are everywhere, if it's the later then there's no escape. I would imagine that the lower the pressure the easier it would be for them to fly, a few millibars would make no difference to us but to insects I would think it would be a huge difference.
I would hazard a guess that snakes would be more active when insects are more abundant, this would bring out the lizards, rodents etc to feed and the snakes would be after these. No insects out, no predators out, no snakes out!!

Rich

[spooky1]

Thank you for the responses, I guess I'm not much of a cycle rider if I worry about bug guts on my glasses and in my mouth. The temp was about 84 under a clear, moonless sky on both the buggy and near bug-less night. I don't know what the insects are but they are very small and look a little like leaf hoppers with the occasional moth as can be seen in the dash-cam video. Riding in the dark outskirts of the burbs I have witnessed many wild critters including a vinegaroon on one occasion. I've had an owl flying alongside me and had bats fly in to snatch an insect within a couple of feet from my head. The best experience was the two times I was forced to stop and let a mother raccoon and her brood casually walk across the road and one evening at dusk watched in my rear view mirror as a juvenile mountain lion crossed the road. One night something struck the top of my head on a lonely road that might have been a meteorite fragment or maybe a near-miss by a bat. I had an odd encounter with a patrolman last night at a Quick-Trip at about midnight, as he was walking to his car he suggested that if I do much late night riding I might want to be wary of anyone following me. I didn't think to ask if there had been any attacks or incidents but he sure felt the need to alert me about something. It's sad that I would have to worry about anyone bothering me that late at night but I refuse to have my freedom defined by some malcontent and will take something along as a deterrent on future rides.
In the spirit of this being an insect site and not one for motorcycles I as a kid found a Polyphemus Moth which the school biology teacher helped me preserve and frame and I had a number of tarantula's and scorpions that I collected from cedar glades in the Northern Ozarks in Missouri. Snake hunting the Trans-Pecos in Texas I saw a number of unusual insects that would collect under the streetlights in the town I was staying. Big Bend Park has a particularly nasty variety of scorpion that seemed to like the concrete walkway in front of my motel room. Maybe they were taking advantage of the insects drawn by the lights.

[Paul K]

I guess vary night by night at same conditions might be related also to some large emergence of new insects.
As they spread next night and been eaten by bats in couple of nights massive population might be gone until new cycle will take place.

Paul