Glittering prize

I'm still in bed at the moment, having my tea and relishing the prospect of a lovely day. 'Uninterrupted sunshine,' says the BBC. Oh goody. I shall go and inspect the trap shortly, but for now here is the rest of my backlog, and a close-up of the wonderful, sudden patterning of a Beautiful Golden Y. The production of wing scales like this is a natural wonder; the reason for them, unknown.

Maybe it should be called the Golden Questionmark, like some sort of TV prize show, because the Y is nearly always broken in this fashion. It's a characterful-looking moth in every respect with its tufted back resembling the succession of little summits along Striding Edge. The ground colour is also a lovely mixture of different browns. It's common too in spite of its fine appearance, and we get frequent visits from its near namesake the Plain Golden Y, which is less of a Cinderella than it sounds (see posts passim, including this strangely-captioned one...)