Thursday 15 September 2011

Obeying the laws of fashion

Blue and green should never be seen
Unless there's something in between


I first heard that fashion rule when HM The Queen visited Bath when I was a young reporter there and she excited much comment by her defiance of it.


The Red-green Carpet is more obedient, or conventional. It's a moth which appears all over the country at this time of year, except perhaps for the Orkney islands where only one has ever been seen.


As you can see, it's really the Brown-green Carpet and thus has lessons for camouflage, although perhaps ones which the experts have known for a long time. I remember painting my Airfix kits of a Spitfire and a Lancaster bomber in almost exactly this patterning. Here's the wing closer-up, although I've not yet mastered focus at this level so it looks more like a blurry reconnaissance film from one of the above aircraft.


One feature of the Red-green Carpet is a patch of flaky white at the tip of each forewing, as if the moth has had a brush with chalk or a board-rubber. Here's that close-up as well.

2 comments:

Bennyboymothman said...

Nice description of a vivid Carpet Moth Martin, I don't get many of these in my current location on farmland, but when I use to live in a village and then a tow I was seeing they regularly.
Re. the painting Airfix models, yes the green's and brown's look almost identical don't they!

MartinWainwright said...

Hi Ben

The colours could have come straight from a Humbrol enamel tin...

Interesting about the different habitats, too

all warm wishes as ever M