All shapes and sizes

My first moth this morning looks like a lonely Star Wars spaceship in a galaxy far, far away, complete with distantly twinkling stars in the background. In fact it's an example of that bright little gem, the Barred Yellow, perching on the inside of the moth trap bowl. The stars must be particles of dust.

It was a welcome spot of colour amid the eggboxes on a rather grey morning, but the duller and slightly colder weather is not deterring the moths any more than the vigilant robin which accompanies my inspections, but goes hungry. On the inside of the roof afforded by the transparent cowl of the trap, four Light Emeralds were dozing, two of them shown here from above and below. Twice for good measure (and also because of the oddities of the generally excellent Layout app).

In the eggboxes, we had the year's first Dark Arches, a fine and quite large moth which will be a regular visitor for the next couple of months. Alongside it was an example of Muddling Bretheren which I think is a Dusky Brocade.

Beside the Barred Yellow on the side of the bowl was one of those peculiar creatures, the Longhorn family of micro-moths. You can see the reason for the name. Envious though I am of antennae, I wouldn't want to cart those ones about, specially if I had a body half the size of a pea.

Two other curiously-shaped moths emerged from the eggboxes: a delicate White Plume micro and the Pinocchio-like Snout:

Then, more conventionally, I found a handsome Peppered Moth, or Salt-and-Peppered as it should perhaps be known, and the most attractive, rusty-iron form of the very varied Marbled Minor.

An Elephant Hawk like yesterday's film star was sleeping on another box but it was the moth beyond it which caught my eye. This agreeable exercise in coffee, hazel and beige is a bit of a puzzle to me. Is it a Lackey? If so, it is rather early and would be my first. But I cannot see anything else in the Moth Bible which fits its description.

Finally, among the moths in the trap, here's a better-than-usual photo of the Muslin Footman whose restrained dazzle camouflage almost always seems to fox the iPhone camera. This one is about as close to exact focus as I can manage; yet still the pattern contrives to appear to the human eye as a slight blur.

A neighbour meanwhile summoned me to her garden to inspect the fifth Scarlet Tiger to arrive in our locality. Aren't they fantastic! I gave it a gentle tickle to demonstrate the reason for its name.

And lastly, forgive a diversion into larger flying things: one of our many local herons and a fledgling chaffinch which got into our greenhouse along with a sibling. We had a high old time shooing them out.