Candidly, I've become quite cautious when it comes to identifying moths--I've made so many mistakes! My reference texts are meager, my background knowledge is wanting, and for the last two summers I've been consistently overwhelmed by the staggering diversity of our local noctuids, geometrids, and tortricids. Every time I go 'a mothing' I find another 2-3 species I've never before encountered. The learning curve is a bit steep for the first thousand species, I suppose. That said, I will confess that with practice I'm now able to get the right family 90 percent of the time, the right genus 75 percent of the time, and the right species 60 percent of the time. ;-)