Help! Stop! The moths are pouring in now and I am overwhelmed. Grey Daggers, Light Emeralds, the first of the various yellow underwings... it's madness. Mind you, I turned the trap on unusually early last night, after going outside at 9.30 and noticing that moths were already on the wing, although it was still quite light.
Who can blame them? Dusk is a lovely time, with the air still warm at this time of the year, the wind usually still and scents very strong. Here's a picture of the trap in its usual setting, with rather more of the background showing than usual because of the good light. Penny is responsible for the rockery, I should add, although I help with weed destruction. Also, below, some of last night's customers. The micro - is it a Large Fruit-tree Tortrix someone? - isn't actually molesting the Light Emerald. The trap's transparent collar forms a chastity screen. The two Light Emeralds snucked into the eggbox with a blurry Peppered moth and something I'll identify later, give a better idea of their actual colour. Lovely. If you double click on the pic, btw, it gets a lot bigger and you can see that they look like two beautiful grounded gliders.
3 comments:
How gorgeous your garden looks! We arrived at the farm last night for the first time after a month of nearly solid rain (rare for the month of June) and I just took a little stroll around outside - no moths to speak of - but greenery like a jungle! There are flowers and vegetables in there somewhere, but it is going to take more than a little "weed destruction" to find them!
Yep, they certainly were 'on it' last night, well over 65 species here of quite a few Moths.
Your Tortricidae under the Light Emerald looks like a Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix
The the dark Moth in the second picture is a Large Yellow Underwing, one of many i'm sure!
Hi pals! Good luck with the veg hunt Sarah - do you want to join our Anglo-American pumpkin growing contest which has just started? I will email a pics of our five puny plants. Keep moth hunting!
Thanks as ever Ben, I very much appreciate the identifications and am struggling to improve. There really are a lot of moths around, aren't there? Still, mustn't grumble... beginning to sound like a farmer.
Post a Comment