Bright spark

After yesterday's self-indulgence with the Burnished Brass picture, you might have expected something more sober this morning. But you would have been wrong. Another moth which I cannot resist photographing and showing is the Gold Spot, or possibly the closely-related Lempcke's Gold Spot; the differences are too fine for a crude observer such as myself to detect. Especially when it chooses to settle in a delta shape, as this one did. 

The position shows the teardrop nature of the main reflective/refractive scale sections and also the cheery tuft of hair on its head which reminds me of a cheeky-chappy singer of my youth, Joe Brown - remember him?  It was altogether a cheerful assembly in the eggboxes and on the trap itself, including these three Centre-barred Sallows, in varying condition. The fourth picture shows the third moth upside down and looking rather startled after I upset it from its nook on the bulbholder and before it landed safely on my palm.

Another extremely agreeable visitor was the Gothic moth below, appropriately because yesterday P and I spent a couple of hours in York Minister at a good friend's memorial service. The delicate tracery on the wings of this species, a lover of damp surroundings and weedy hedgerows and therefore at home here, is delightfully delicate in exactly the manner of the great cathedral's Gothic architecture, left.

I also recorded the year's first 'Darth Vader Moth', the Black Rustic immediately below, and the two other gentlemen (or possibly ladies) in my final pair of pictures. These are common moths for this time of year but I always get in a tizz and need time to tell these sort of average-brown-or-grey moths apart, I haven't yet had enough. I will, however, guess as follows: 1. Vine's Rustic. 2. Square-spot Rustic. If correct, that's three rustics in  a row.