Alder Fen station · est. 2019
The Collector
One person, one lamp, and a long argument with the dark — conducted politely, nightly, from April to September.
Who keeps the ledger
The Moth Ledger is kept by E. Marlowe, who came to the fen in 2019 with a borrowed actinic tube and the firm intention of staying one season. Seven seasons later the archive holds 600-plus nights of counts, four specimen drawers, and a conviction that the most honest way to know a landscape is to stand at its edge after dark and write down whatever answers the light.
Nothing here is taken from the fen that does not need to be. The drawer is small by design; the ledger is the real collection. Correspondence is welcome: keeper@mothledger.example
Apparatus
| Item | Particulars | State |
|---|---|---|
| Actinic tube | 15 W, 230 V, blue-white | burning |
| Calico sheet | 2.4 × 1.5 m, washed monthly | patched |
| Trap box | Ply, 40 × 40 cm, four chambers | sound |
| Power | 800 W inverter off a leisure battery | since 2025 |
| Camera | Macro lens, available light only | nightly |
| Notebook | Waxed cover, pencil by preference | No. 14 |
| Killing jar | Ethyl acetate, 2019–2022 | retired |
Method, in four moves
Set at dusk
Sheet hung on the north edge where the alders break the wind; lamp at chest height, box beneath. Everything squared by torchlight before the last colour leaves the sky.
Burn from dark
The tube goes on when the first star is certain. No music, no phone light — the fen does its own announcing.
Count at midnight
One slow circuit of the sheet, pencil moving. Anything uncommon goes into a viewing chamber for the camera, ten minutes at most.
Release at dawn
Whatever was held is walked out to the hedge and given back. The lamp is the loan; the fen keeps the title.
The station, from above
House rules
- 01
Whatever the sheet gives, the dawn takes back. Nothing kept lives past sunrise unless it was already dead on arrival.
- 02
The drawer takes only what the ledger cannot hold — one fair specimen of a species, never two.
- 03
The lamp is a guest of the fen. Leave the bank as the owls found it.
History of the station
- 2019
First light. Nine moths, three species, one convert.
- 2021
Drawers I–IV built from reclaimed school joinery; the catalogue opens at specimen Nº 1.
- 2023
Photography-first policy adopted; the killing jar retires to a high shelf.
- 2025
Generator swapped for battery and inverter. The fen gets its quiet back.
- 2026
Season Nº 8 underway — survey night 214 and counting.