Tara Fourre will be running an event in Warren NJ for National Moth Week. Tara wrote up the following post for our blog. Tara says:
“I have been in love with the insect world for a long time. It probably all started back when I was a toddler and would go on walks with my mom to hunt for caterpillars. All the other kids thought I was nuts for allowing them to crawl in my hands and up my arms, but I loved them! In college, I was so excited when I learned that I could actually earn credits for taking a course about insects. Dr. Lipton at The College of NJ was awesome and introduced me to the art of pinning and taught me very important things like Heteroptera being the only true ‘bugs’ in the insect world. A fact that I use any time someone calls a spider a bug!
Soon I was collecting and pinning any insect that I came across in my backyard. Neighbors, friends and family were bringing me specimens of ‘gross bugs’ they found throughout their day hoping that I could identify them and add them to my growing collection. My walls became a gallery of insects mixed in with a few family photos.
My eye turned to moths once I started working on pinning a Cecropia moth that my dad hit with his car one evening. It was BEAUTIFUL!! So beautiful that I turned it into a tattoo on my shoulder (so frustrating when people comment on the pretty butterfly). Oh well, we can’t all have a passion for entomology and Saturniidae, I guess!
I am located in rural Warren County, NJ just a few miles from Delaware Water Gap, right next to some preserved farm land. I don’t have any special setup for moth viewing, unless you count leaving the deck light on in the backyard!”
Thanks for sharing your story with us, Tara!