[Spiritwood]

Thanks Gill, an informative and helpful answer.

Habitat is of course of primary importance and was the first thing I concentrated on. I have ensured there are plenty of suitable food plants in our (large) wildlife garden and in the general locality - we have a large wooded Park at the bottom of our road.

I bought 10 Eyed Hawkmoth Pupae from Worldwide Butterflies and they are to send 10 Garden Tiger larvae from a UK supplier in May as I didn't want to reduce the natural population in any way. Both were listed as UK species but after reading your message I've just emailed Robert to see if he can confirm this and he has already replied "Garden Tiger are British. Eyed are from Central Europe where there is no evidence of any geographical variation...". I don't want to keep any wild creature in captivity unnecessarily.

I've already emailed Roger Gaunt at The Gloucestershire Naturalists Society for further advice on what I can do to help support the local population of our Native Moths.