Guest star, plus a big supporting cast

The local moths continue to be excellently abundant on these warm nights but pride of place this morning goes to a visiting East Londoner. This is because it was sent by my  daughter-in-law who, although Mum to one of the country's most enthusiastic primary school entomologsists, is not keen on insects of any kind herself.

So it was brave of her to get this fine picture in their garden of the Mint Moth, Pyrausta aurata, a brightly-coloured micro-moth which nips around fragrant plants on sunny days. What's more, she's photographed it on a lovely background of a Potentilla flower. So a big thank you, Abi!

For the second time in a week, a new species has meanwhile visited here, the Alder moth in my second picture, a species which is only locally common. I know that it largely fits into the browny-blacky-grey spectrum but its colour and patterning is actually quite subtle and it stood out in the eggboxes as something which I hadn't seen before. The picture below shows it with its neighbouring guest, a Green Carpet, to give an idea of its size.

Actually, before I opened the trap, I spent several minutes inspecting its surroundings in the garden, in spite of the watchful presence of a blackbird whose early rising I must try to beat one of these mornings; I am afraid that I suspect that it finds some of the outlying moths well before I arrive. But here is a whole series of visitors who declined to actually enter the trap:

Scorched Wing with its dazzle camouflage

The lovely Silver-ground Carpet

Common Wainscot

Chinese Character aka the Bird-poo Moth

I'll have to check but I guess Oak-tree Pug

Lime-speck Pug - one I can do

Garden Pebble - the micro Evergestis forficalis

On the bottom of the bulbholder, meanwhile, was one of my favourite regulars, the Figure of 80 moth, making its debut this year. Harking back to my musings yesterday on anthropomorphism, there is always an appeal in animals whose patterns resemble something human - like the pronounced comma on the butterfly of that name. The moth really does look as though it was number 80 in a record-and-release programme organised by scientists.

We are by no means finished, so I hope you have time and patience. This is one of the year's spikes for moths, to use a term current in the coronavirus vocabulary, and it is sometimes possible for even the most enthusiastic moth-watcher to feel a little overwhelmed. But here we go, starting with the year's first Peppered Moth, an extremely famous creature which has reams of space on the internet because of its role in natural selection and discussions relating thereto. The first picture is a rare example of the black bowl's effect on the camera working to advantage, making the moth almost celestial rather than blurred. I enticed the sleepy creature on to an eggbox fragment for the second photo. The melanic or dark version which is at the centre of the Darwinian issue also visits me here, but not as often as the standard one.

Next, we'll have some shining ones, partly illuminated by sunrise in a cloudless sky and partly by their reflective and refractive wing scales. The Elephant Hawk in the first picture doesn't have these, so he or she is relying solely on the sun. There were two in the trap along with a Poplar Hawk, which means that by only 20 May, I have had all my regular hawks. Only the Privet, Pine and Hummingbird remain to join the party.

The Gold Spot below is an exquisite though common moth and below that, here is a Burnished Brass of the form aurea with the central brown band unbroken by the greenery-yallery gold. The light in this picture shows up a pattern on the brown which resembles the Inky Flower, a species dreamed up by my granddaughter for an online school exercise in which the children had to invent their own plant.

The Spectacle Moth is another of my all-time favourites, especially when I get a picture like this:

It takes me back to only the second-ever post on this blog, 12 years ago - sobering thought - in Leeds. As you can see, I mentioned ID issues then, as I still do today.

The Spectacle doesn't wear spectacles and its 'eyes' are not eyes but probably 'surprise' camouflage. The real peepers are just below.  Here is the moth from two more conventional angles. It was a fine, freshly-emerged example.

Yet another favourite was out in force, the White Ermine, and here are two of them making sure that the species continues to flourish while a third looks discreetly away. Mind you, there was a spy at work, apart from myself. The second picture shows the head and antennae of an interested ichneumon wasp.

Still they come. Here is a very smartly patterned Knot Grass followed by an Oak-tree Pug (I think) and, in the bowl, that lovely moth, the Scorched Carpet. So today we have a Scorched Carpet and a Scorched Wing; and the weather looks as though it's going to be scorching too.

Bringing up the rear: another pug which also looks like an Oak-tree to me, but I will check, one of the dark and ferrous versions of the Marbled Minor,  a Square-spot Rustic with its square spots,  a Shears with its nippers pointing downward on the wings, a Light Brocade and a Poplar Kitten. Update: this final pug is actually a new arrival for me; a Sloe Pug, kindly identified by Martin Townsend on the ever-wondrous Upper Thames Moths blog.

Phew!  You made it.  Well done and well done the moths as well.