Monday 15 June 2009

Steady the Buffs


I compared the Flame moth to a fag-end a couple of days ago. Now here's a filtered version - though more like a cigar, perhaps. It's a Buff Tip which visited last night; a well-known example of camouflage mimicry. Spot one at rest on a broken birch twig, which I'm afraid I didn't have handy, and it's hard to tell the difference. It was lovely and warm yesterday evening, perhaps the most summery night of the year so far, but some time later it rained. There was a big moth already zooming about when I turned the trap on at about 10.30pm, but it probably wasn't this one; moth experts' data shows that Buff Tips usually come to light-traps after midnight. That's another retirement project: the flight times of different moths. But will I have the stamina to stay up late? If not, I could maybe instal the moths' very own mini-CCTV system. After writing my headline, incidentally, I realised that I didn't know the origin of the phrase so I Googled and Wiki-ied and it's all on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffs_(Royal_East_Kent_Regiment), and very interesting it is too.

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