Kitchen visitors

Our kitchen isn't much of a sight at the moment, with no worktops, sink or hob since work stopped on a general renovation at the beginning of lockdown. Nonetheless, it attracted two interesting visitors the other day, one from the butterfly world and the other a moth.

The butterfly is a Large Skipper, one of some 25 butterfly species which we get here every year. Its name well describes its habit of jinking around in the long grass on field edges; like a stunt pilot, it is extremely skilful at flying fast between blades of grass without hitting them.  This one was a little tired and overheated from being indoors, I think, as it made only feeble attempts to avoid my cupped hands which then shooed it outside where it spiralled away.

My second visitor was this very small and distinctively-patterned micro below, one of the three UK members of the Oegoconia family which are impossible to tell apart without dissecting their genitalia. Not a task for me. It had taken a liking to our new kitchen cupboards and sat there docilely while I photographed it from all sides.

Outside the trap the following morning, a Scorched Wing had found a convenient perch on pea netting where it was unmolested by birds. And inside the trap were the moths below. In order: the micros Anania perludicalis and Yponomeuta malinellus, the latter also known as the Apple Ermine, a Clouded-bordered Brindle and a Straw Dot. I've enlarged the 'dot' on the last to show the very slight traces of mauvey blue, that rare colour on the moth spectrum

Next we have a couple of Willow Beauties, the second one sleeping alongside a rather battered White Ermine, an Eyed Hawk (I can never resist these when they flash their wonderful lower wings), and finally a Heart and Dart.  Busy times continue, then, but nothing outstanding on this occasion.