Wednesday 12 October 2011

Some moths at last

This blog is in danger of breaching the Trades Descriptions Act - my fascination with locusts and allied grasshoppers, not to mention jellyfish, means that a moth hasn't appeared here for nearly two weeks.

Sorry. My cupboard is almost empty, although I ran the trap last night and hope to find a few inhabitants there when it gets light enough to use the camera. Roll on the end of British Summer Time.

Anyway, here is a moth - a sad one because it got caught in a spider's web in our kitchen where Penny saw it dangling like a grisly victim of an execution. Another example of Nature's unsentimental world.

Also on moths, the Guardian has had one of its occasional fits of excitement and asked me to write a comment piece on a recent spate of interesting immigrant species, including the lovely Crimson Speckled which I saw in France and featured on the blog back in August. Here are my bon mots, along with a startling and entertaining thread of readers' views.

3 comments:

Billy Dykes said...

I must ask, since its hangin' around, have you managed to identify the moth? It reminds me of a Convulvulous Hawk-moth!

MartinWainwright said...

Hi Bill

Sorry, I couldn't - I didn't get anything to scale and it's way smaller than the C Hawk, I'm afraid. Some sort of Drab or similarly unfortunately-named type, I think. I'll send a copy to Charlie Fletcher, our county moth recorder who knows everything, and report back

all v best

M

MartinWainwright said...

Hello again!

I just tried this on Charlie but it's too far gone even for him.

A Rustic of some sort maybe?

RIP anyway

M