Originally published September 2021.

Why preserving the irreplaceable benefits everyone and especially moths.

The names of moths are a delicious smorgasbord of rich imagery. Our evenings are festooned by Dusky Footmen and Ruby Tigers, Death’s Head hawkmoths and even the Scarce Merveille du Jour. They bring the pipistrelles and barbastelle who, through echo location, find and eat them. They bring the goat-sucker into our woods. Their hairy caterpillars feed our lost cuckoos. Ditches across our marshland flitter with ephemeral China mark moths, miniature ballerinas in trembling ivory. The very names evocative and musical, colourful and hysterical. How can you not smile at the Nut tree tussock, Oak beauty and Sussex emerald? 

Through these progeny of ancient oaks and denizens of the teeming fun of our ditch water, I come closest to spiritual resurgence. Not, perhaps, in a religious way, but in a way that feels like clotted cream melting through my diaphragm. A physical affirmation of spirituality, pure, simple and awe inspiring. A relationship that brings me ease, through an eternally evolving continuum of wonder.