Sparkling water

There was a moth in the trap when I finally got round to investigating yesterday, and it was made more interesting by the rainfall. Although the shield is surprisingly effective (Kevin the electrician said: "They'd never be allowed to sell that" when he first saw it), a little bit of water usually gets inside after an hour or two.

Tucked under the one really damp eggbox was this Clouded Drab, whose dullness was banished by what looked like tiny diamonds on its dull-coloured wings. They were very small dots of moisture accumulated from its surroundings but held on the 'skin' of the scales in the same way that rain fails to penetrate the lanolin-protected fleece of sheep, such as those shown in yesterday's post.

The camera doesn't do the phenomenon justice and I'm afraid that my pictures get blurry in close-up. But here is a section of wing where I hope you can see the moisture it bit more obviously. I went down again an hour or so later and the moth had dried out. Shortly afterwards, it skittered off to a safer home inside a rhododendron bush.