JOIN US FOR our sixth annual Moth Night, part of the citizen-science project called National Moth Week, and organized by Margaret Roach’s A Way to Garden and the Friends of Taconic State Park. BYO picnic supper if you please — we’ll provide dessert treats — to enjoy while you learn some Moth 101 from top experts, then experience nature after dark with them and just have fun.

Suitable for all ages, and families welcome. Wait till you see what we discover together at moth-attracting blacklight “stations” set up on park trails, like the Pandorus sphinx, above! (Ticket ordering form at the bottom of this page.)

Note: This is a free event, but if you wish to donate to the Friends of Taconic State Park to help us offer honoraria to more experts to lead more nature programs like this one, there is an extra button for that! Thanks.

Also: Note new location within the Park from past years for this event.

Brigette Zacharczenko, a PhD UConn-Storrs entomologist and science teacher, and Dylan Cipkowski, who has been surveying the moths of Columbia County, NY, as part of his field work with nearby Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program, will be our guides.

This year’s Moth Night starts at 7:30 at the Bash Bish Falls Parking lot on the NY side of the MA-NY border, 1 mile up Route 344 past the Taconic State Park office (following the paved uphill road). The parking area is on the right side of 344, and is the same lot where people park when they take a walk up a trail to the falls.

Park staff will be in the Park office at 253 State Route 344, Copake Falls to direct guests to the parking lot if there is any confusion, but if you set your GPS for the office address, then continue past the office and stay left at the fork up the paved road (still Route 344) one mile, there you are.

We’ll get started with a quick Moth 101, and have live specimens to examine from overnight light “traps” set the evening before to examine before dark.

At nightfall we head into the woods along a trail above the brook, where we will have set up special blacklight stations to lure and then view the night’s visitors. For those not wishing to walk the trail, there will be light stations set up by the meeting area as well, very easily accessible. Come for an hour, or stay the whole evening.

NOTE: BYO supper if you like and come a bit earlier. Delicious dessert-like treats baked by David Wurth of CrossRoads Food Shop in Hillsdale will be provided, courtesy of Margaret at A Way to Garden.