Sooty

I realise I may be testing the patience of those longing for vivid moths, but this humble arrival (above) isn't completely uninteresting. It looks like an early victim of the Icelandic volcano ash which is causing chaos to human flights. I wonder if collated moth trap information will show any difference over the next few days, as the ash drifts down to ground level (assuming that that is what it will do). I don't need warning about volcanic ash as an invisible enemy of machinery. We wrecked a nice camera simply by taking it up Vesuvius. You should have heard the camera shop man in Leeds, eloquent on the fiendish effects of the particles. Anyway, I think this is a Narrow-winged Pug, one of a tribe created by God specially to exasperate moth identifiers. Ben and Co will put me right if it isn't. The pair in the long thin picture look to me like Brindled Pugs, largely because this moth flies in March/April while most Pugs don't hatch until June or thereabouts. It's hard to photograph moths which insist on staying in the trap's black bowl. The darkness does something beyond my understanding to the camera's intake of light, even with digital's extra cleverness.
Incidentally, I was up on the Roman Wall recently and the way the Narrow-winged Pug's eggbox has curled and jutted reminds me of the stretch at Cuddy Crags. Strange, how the mind works.