Thursday 8 August 2019

Carpets and Arches



A pretty collection of Carpet moths for you this morning - Scorched, Least and Red or Dark-barred Twin Spot. The last prompted a friend to exclaim: 'Missoni!', a type of closely-striped dress which I have to admit was new to me, but which I will now add to my rather hackneyed and often-repeated references to Laura Ashley which accompany pictures of graceful, floaty Waves and suchlike moths


The moth above might well inspire a dress designer too; it's a Yellowtail seen from the opposite end of its body; while below is a sequence of pictures of one of my great favourites, that arch-Dazzle camouflage beauty, the Black Arches. Like the zebra, which we all love so much from youngest childhood onwards, this moth is a stunning example of the beauty of pure black alongside pure white.







Elsewhere in the trap, the Thorns have been starting to arrive over the last couple of weeks, a moth which I associate with Autumn although actually its August Thorn species, of which this is an example, is a reminder that we have plenty of Summer left.


Next, some pictures showing the continuing variety of arrivals: a Common Swift, a couple of the very variable Large Yellow Underwing, a male Ghost Moth (Update: female - sorry! Many thanks to my commentor below for pointing out my slip) and a Dark Arches:






And next to the world of micros - two of the web-spinning Ermine moths which are another exercise in black and white. The smaller is, I think, an Apple and its larger companion a Bird-cherry.


And lastly, a rather unusual-looking moth which turned out to be - lower picture - that old and peculiar favourite the Pale Pinion (Update: Oops, I meant Prominent. Thanks to Conehead54 below for picking up slip number two. I clearly wasn't concentrating when I wrote the post. Apols). You seldom see them holding out their wings so boldly.




3 comments:

Conehead54 said...

Think you meant Pale Prominent for last moth!

Anonymous said...

Hi Martin

Im pretty sure the yellow (and larger)Ghost Moth is the female, with the male being the white one.

Martin Wainwright said...

Hi both - very many thanks for the monitoring - much appreciated! I've finally corrected the post after a busy spell. All warm wishes, Martin