The green and the grey

The title of this post is the same as a chapter heading in True North, my take on the North of England, which tries to explain the attraction of those parts of the 'industrial' North where the mills and towns are surrounded, and often penetrated, by lovely countryside. They have an appeal which almost matches our five star areas, such as the Lake District, which are finer but infinitely more-visited and therefore without that 'secret' appeal which can be so beguiling. If you pay a call on this blog's sister (click on my profile and then on True North), you can see an outstanding example: Castle Carr above Luddenden Foot in the Calder valley. The fountain there is one of Yorkshire's great hidden gems.

Moths, now. The Green here is my old favourite the Green Arches, which teamed up last night with a pair of its friends the Grey Arches whose different conditions give you a chance to see how the ups and downs of life take their toll. They were the stars of a very large troop in the trap; at least 60 yellow underwings of the various types, ten Light Emeralds, a Beautiful Golden Y, three Burnished Brasses, four Marbled Minors, assorted Waves, a Mottled Beauty, a game old Poplar Hawk getting a bit tatty now and a whole speckle of micros. Busy times, and the warm weather continues. The big job at this time of the year is hiding the comatose moths from the birds, although I've yet to suffer the feature of previous years when a particular predator, usually a blackbird, wises up to the potentially enormous breakfast buffet. Hiding places today included our barbecue slotted spoon, here seen sheltering the better-preserved of the Grey Arches.

I'm just self-indulgently adding this close-up of the Green Arches' wings because i like the colour combination so much. I'm sorry not to have got the camera down to super-micro scale but as soon as one of my sons pays us a visit, I hope to have a refresher course on how to do this.