Catching up

I didn't trap last night cos of a busy day and general fatigue, but there's plenty to catch up on from the last, lovely, warm week. Here's a carpet moth - Spruce, I think - resting on the lamp flex in the jaunty, up-tails-all habit they have, above, and my old and frequently visiting favourite, the Spectacle moth, below.

The many Scalloped Hazels which have come calling included this darker one. Just to add the identity confusion from which I suffer, many moth species vary greatly in colour and shade. The SH ranges from a pale, whiteish brown to a form which is so dark that it has its own third name - nigra or black - to add to the species' Linnaean title Odontopera bidentate. Something about two teeth there, my long-ago Latin tells me; presumably a reference to the twin points on the edge of the wing. Update: check out David Shenton's excellent, erudite addition to this in Comments. Note the Shuttle-shaped Dart lurking in the neighbouring eggbox cone.