Dowager moth

The Old Lady moth has a particular place in my affections because the first I ever saw was browsing on rum and treacle which my cousin and I had smeared on trees at an uncle's rectory in Suffolk. Full of excitement, we ran into the house shouting: "We've caught an old lady!" There was brief consternation because two real elderly ladies from his previous parish were also staying at the time.

Sadly, my aunt has just died at a venerable age and her funeral was held yesterday. This morning, I was investigating the eggboxes gingerly, because three hornets were snoozing on the wall by the trap, and Lo! There was the only the third Old Lady to visit me since  we moved to live near Oxford; the last came almost exactly a year ago, on 2nd September last year.

I persuaded this one to move on to my finger and thence to a white rose but the process disquieted her and, as you can see from the second picture, she was soon exercising her wings to summon up enough energy for take-off. Shortly after I took the third photo, she was up and away, fluttering in her gloomy Victorian robes into the safety of a buddleia bush.

Other interesting visitors over the last few nights include this exciting-looking beetle, above, the Oak Hooktip below and the two Sallows, nicely showing the difference between the Centre-barred Sallow at the bottom and the Barred Sallow at the top.

Finally, I felt a tickle on my leg in the kitchen yesterday afternoon which I assumed to be a fly. When I felt down with my fingers, however, the tickler proved to be soft and squashy - the caterpillar, ID as yet unknown, shown in the picture below.