Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

I always love nature and enjoy a variety of hobbies and interests including nature photography and ballroom dancing. I discovered the joy of moth photograghy in the summer of 2005. I purchased an UV light from BioQuip a year later and set it up between two mature pear trees in my backyard for attracting moths in the neighbouring area (no baiting/sugaring yet). Interesting looking moths are potted then stored in the fridge for picture taking on the next day. I always release the moths after photographing them (except gypsy moths and few other unfortunate ones that failed to survive the ordeal). I maintain a list of the ones that can be positively and/or reasonably identified, so far the numbers have grown to 438 at the start of 2009 mothing season. Some of my moth photos are posted on MPG and BugGuide.

In July 2008, I helped confirm the existence of an European species "Carpatolechia fugitivella" in Ontario by catching the specimens in my own backyard and submitting them to All-Leps for barcoding purposes. Photographs of this species are posted at MPG under a newly assigned Hodges # 1874.2.

MPG, All-Leps, Microleps and BugGuide are some of the websites that I rely upon for identification. Many thanks to Bob Patterson, Don Lafontaine, Jean-François Landry, Vazrick Nazari and SangMi Lee for their assistance in providing invaluable info on moth identification.

JL