Thursday 24 May 2012

House of Moths


A couple of handsome moths this morning, especially the White Ermine which always reminds me of the House of Lords. It has a habit of snoozing in curtains and was thus one of the first attractive moths I saw as a child, as opposed to grey and brown things jinking about in the dusk. This is still the case. We went to see some cousins a year or two back, and their teenage son came downstairs to report an interesting moth. It was a White Ermine on a dark blue curtain, in similar excellent and newly-hatched condition to this one.


The second moth is, I am pretty sure, a Lychnis, although there is a very similar one called the Campion and a third with the appealing name of Pod Lover. All three actually love pods. As caterpillars, they live comfortably in the seed pods of campion flowers, munching away at their surroundings until either they are too big or there are no surroundings left. Then they pupate and in due course turn into this lovely moth.

3 comments:

Jane said...

hopefully this is the start f many more lovely moths, lots out tonight here, love those handsome ermines, so regal

entertainment manchester said...

Hi Martin,

when's your Wild City book coming out? I've seen some places say today, others say next year?

James

MartinWainwright said...

Hi Jane - good to hear from you again. Hope you're getting this fabulous weather. The ermines are brilliant, aren't they? I think the Buff one will be along soon, and the Muslin moth which I sometimes get muddled with the White Ermine. Just lovely.

Hi James - sorry, it's my fault. I keep failing to find time to get it finished. October's my new deadline. I owe an embarrasing number of emails to people and must get down to it. The moths keep distracting me, among other things...

all warm wishes both,

M