Mopping up

High Priests? Or Edmund Hilary, Sherpa Tensing Norgay and the ghost of Mallory or Irvine?

I was too tired to trap last night after driving back from the North and have woken agreeably late this morning, so much so that Penny made the tea. Time to feature a few also-rans from earlier in the week, therefore; and also to mull over a series of micro-moths which are still on the run from my Identity Police.

In the prayer meeting above for example, which puts me in mind of Caiaphas, Ananais and High Priests in general, the Middle-barred Minor on the left is joined by - I think - a Pyralid micro on the right. The upside-down one in the middle - a religious dissenter? - is going to take a lot of tracking down. Then in the next photo, we have a distinctive beastie with a corporal's stripe. I wonder if he chose my only brown eggbox for camouflage reasons.

This Udea olivalis (I hope I'm right) had a different defence strategy; creeping as far as possible into a cone. He or she was one of four in the trap, however, and the one in the second picture was less of a shrinking violet.

Some bigger moths next: a delicate Willow Beauty on a rhubarb leaf and a Brown Rustic having a cuddle with a White Ermine. It is probably coincidence, but I've noticed that on the relatively rare occasions when two moths snuggle together like this, a White Ermine is often one of them. Mind you, they are particularly attractive.

Finally, two examples of the effects of a hard life in moths through the loss of the scales which hang in overlapping rows on their wings, like roof tiles. I thought initially that the Willow Beauty's neighbour on the rhubarb leaf was an unusual green moth, but the effect is translucence. Apologies for vexing your eyes with the blurring.