Butterfly bush

We've been overnight at the grandchildren's in Walthamstow to celebrate Granny's birthday, and look who joined in the party. Penny was Chief Sub-editor of Cosmopolitan when we met and it's appropriate that 40 years later, our celebrations have been enhanced by a Comma.

It is an unmistakable butterfly in areas from which fritillaries are absent - ie nearly everywhere I regularly go - because it shares with them that almost luminous russet colouring. This distinguishes it from the equally vivid, but in rather different ways, Red Admirals, Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells which also flock to buddleias' honey-scented swags of blossom at this time of the year.

The comma on the underwing looks wonderfully deliberate, as does the marking on the species' American relative, the Question Mark butterfly - see left. I have expatiated on this before and on the other interesting episode from the Comma's history, the intensive collecting and breeding (an releasing and re-introducing) programme carried out in the 19th century by Emma Hutchinson, the wife of the vicar of Kimbolton in Herefordshire. 

The moths meanwhile continue numerous, last night including a further five Poplar Hawks. While hiding them from our very inquisitive robins and blackbirds, I got this unusually comprehensive picture of a Poplar Hawk, flattening itself against our garden wall - very different from their usual, curled-up and batlike position in the trap, as shown right:

On the inside wall of the trap's black plastic bowl - a terribly difficult background for photography because of digital 'reflection', there was a slightly unusual moth. After taking some poor snaps, I enticed it on to an eggbox, after much fluttering, and here it is: the Meal moth, one of the UK's biggest micros and, as its name suggests, a modest threat to Corn Flakes if it gets into your store cupboards. Appropriately, it appears to be reading the ingredients list on the eggbox.

Finally, we have the year's first Dusky Sallow, below, followed by a Slender Brindle , a Rosy Rustic and two little Least Carpets, a tiny, beautiful and only locally common moth. Both favoured the underside of the trap's transparent cowl, peeping upwards at the drizzle-bespattered morning (rain at last; the garden rejoices).