Rain, rain, go away!

As you will know only too well - overseas pals apart - 'flaming' June is proving its usual treacherous self. Wet and cold. Last Saturday's warm, mothy night seems a world away. Still, I've quite a backlog from then, and here is part of it: a Green Silver Lines. Second to blue, which is almost unheard of in British moth colouring, green is my favourite colour, and so here too is a very green picture, of a Pale Tussock clinging to a blade of grass close to the light. This has a lesson for moth trappers; it's always wise to look at plants close to the light. Quite a few moths get this far and fall asleep without actually flying into Mr and Mrs Robinson's clever plastic cowl. (My trap is the Robinson kind, invented in the 1950s by a famed husband and wife team of entomologists - a great rarity, that; historically mothing has been very male, but maybe that is changing now as with so much else. I hope so). Finally, below, here's a newcomer to my garden: an Alder moth, sharing its eggbox with a Rivulet (the latter is the smaller of the two). More tomorrow. Oh and just a reminder: if you click on any of the pics, they should expand massively. Don't do this if you are showing them to anyone who associates moths with hair, fur, unexpected ticklishness, flying into the ear or up the trouserleg etc. Later: Sorry, I have had the Alder moth here before. Not sure when (and will check when time permits) but I've been looking back on Lime Hawk records (see post above) and see that the Alder headed my alphabetical list of 119 species last year.