khiemtran | Moths!

Sydney is being invaded by bogong moths (think giant brown, vaguely nutty tasting insects, with all the navigation sense of a misguided missile). Normally they pass further inland on their migration, but this year they've been blown over the coast thanks to unusually strong westerlies.

At first we tolerated a few flying inside the house, until we realized how much noise they made when they attempted to resume their nightly migration by banging themselves into the walls all night. For a high-calory snack, those things are pretty fast. It's much easier to catch them during the day while they're resting than at night when they're zipping around at the speed of sight.

They also seemed to have some other remarkable properties. We couldn't work out how they kept appearing inside an apparently moth-tight bedroom, until I made a disconcerting discovery while getting dressed one morning. It turns out they've been getting carried indoors along with the clean laundry and then emerging from the wardrobe at night. Well, except for one I found inside my jeans the other day, just after I had put them on...