Two moons

This post dates back a couple of weeks but has been slumbering unfinished in the Drafts file and then  got leap-frogged in my annual excitement at the arrival of the Merveilles du Jour. it doesn't concern particularly interesting moths so much as the effects or otherwise of their supposed navigational guiding light, the Moon.

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Here is the said Moon, first of all in the morning at about 6am when it was still shining strongly and then during the previous evening when its glow, as you can see, was a worthy rival for the light trap. Moth experts continue to debate about the relationship between the two but in general, and certainly on this evening in particular, a larger moon meant a smaller number of residents in the eggboxes.   

Not that they weren't attractive, whether in the understated grace of the Willow Beauty, above, or the distinctive shape of Blair's Shoulder-knot below. I am repeating myself, for those who have followed me faithfully over the years, but this is one of no fewer than three moths named after a Dr Blair who retired from the entomology department at the Natural History Museum to the Isle of Wight. The latter is a well-known landfall for new additions to the UK list and he first recorded this moth there, and also Blair's Moch and Blair's Wainscot. Well done indeed!

 

Finally a non-moth overnighter. Who doesn't love a Daddy Longlegs?