Only the lonely

For the first time this year, the eggboxes were empty yesterday morning following a night which saw temperatures fall almost to freezing point. Empty, that is, unless you count the sad little corpse of a lavishly-antennaed micro which I've placed on a penny in the picture in a rare attempt to give one of my photographs scale. I don't know what it is although I think it's been my way before; initially I thought one of the longhorns - Adelidae - but I don't think its antennae are quite that lavish. Here's its underside, in case a micro expert is calling by. An Acleris bergmanniana perchance? That would be my other bold guess. Update: Martin Townsend of the Moth Bible has kindly identified it as Carcina quercana for which I am very much obliged.

I'm not a social moth-er, in the sense of wanting to gather round the trap in the morning with others, or attend moth-centred discussions with fellow-enthusiasts. But I'm not anti-social either, and it's good to go to a gathering where the enjoyment we get from this hobby is successfully spread to others.

That was the case last night in Kirtlington, where Chris Powles, Martin Townsend and Julian Howe gave an excellent trio of talks with slides on the Great Death's Head Hawk Moth Discovery - see past references here and here. One result next year, I hope, is that I'll be lending my trap to users in both Kirtlington and nearby Bletchingdon to widen its growing tally of eggbox residents. Another nice feature of the evening was that all the animated chatter woke up a hibernating Peacock butterfly which swooped around above our heads and settled on the floor during a very welcome session of coffee, tea and shortbread before we slipped out into the cold and largely moth-less dark.

A male Death's Head hatched from the Kirtlington finds. What better name for a moth?