This second trap 'n' blog season is getting like a school reunion. On Monday, the first White Ermine of 2009 turned up, followed on Friday by a Peach Blossom. On cue, the first Buff Arches was dozing in an egg box this morning, a close relative of the Peach Blossom although they look like chalk and cheese. Both are a reason for sparing a few brambles in your neighbourhood, because that's what they eat. This applies forcefully to nettles as well, which sustain the caterpillars of some of our most colourful butterflies, the Peacock, Red Admiral and Small Tortoiseshell.
Another welcome visitor, also very much on cue: the first hawk moth of the season. It's a Poplar Hawk and shows exactly the ability as its predecessors last year to squash itself gymnastically into snug spaces in the carton pile.
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