Moth and chips

Things can be a little drab in the moth trap at this time of year, but here is a run of colour to brighten up your day. First off: a Ruby Tiger being unusually ready to show off the reason for its name, possibly distracted by the intricacies of my dressing gown. Normally, they are very reluctant to display their bright red bodies and knee-breeches and intent on scurrying away to the underneath of their eggbox.

Next we have that common but almost butterfly-vivid caller, the Brimstone. Yesterday also saw an actual Brimstone butterfly out enjoying the sun. If the moth hadn't fluttered off earlier to the safety of a bush, I might have contrived an interesting meeting.

The Orange Swift is a new arrival for the year, a species whose brightest colours are given to the male, as so often in the world of moths where the habits of the human world are turned upside down. It is the males who get the finery to attract the female, who has other, less obvious lures of her own, especially the scents which can bring male Emperor moths, for example, jetting in from over a mile away.

  

Like the similar but duller Common Swift which is indeed common around here, the Orange Swift finds dandelions for its caterpillars, an easy task on our lawn. The moths swoop low over the plant and lay their eggs in flight. I suspect that this small clutch in one of the trap's eggboxes was left by one of them. I will leave them near a dandelion and when they hatch, the little larvae should burrow down to find the roots, on which they feed. If we could increase our Common and Orange Swift population, we might at last solve our dandelion problem, though secretly I am very fond of both the ragged, jaunty flowers and their delicate clocks.

The Pyrausta family of micro-moths produce some shining purple specimens although by no means uniformly. They can be dull or lose their sheen, but this one is in its prime:

It is Pyrausta purpuralis while below, for contrast, is a slightly less purple example of Pyrausta aurata which was also in the trap. The latter is also known as the Mint Moth and both species are fond of mints of all kinds and may often be seen flying around the plants during the day. This habit probably accounts for their colourfulness, a characteristic shared by many day-flying moths and, of course, most butterflies. we've currently got a very nice peppermint soap from these excellent local makers Ray of Soap on the go. I might leave a flake or two out to see if they also attract moths.

The Canary-shouldered Thorn is an old friend to this blog and frequently to be found outside the trap but nearby. Here are a couple of examples from the last few days; one on my pea-netting and the other attempting to return my entomologist granddaughter's inquisitive gaze:

Lastly in this run of bright colour, here are two examples of 'gold-leaf moths' whose wing scales include marvellously bright, metallic markings: the micro Catoptria pinella and the immigrant macro, the Silver Y, which is now thought pretty reliably to breed in the UK and stay with us all year round.

Away from moths but still in the brighter part of the spectrum, here is a glimpse of the granddaughter's Collection of Butterflies Found Dead, a project also started by Charles Darwin when he was a boy, but abandoned because the future great scientist found so few. She has got off to a fine start with a Comma, which pleased her Granny whose mastery of punctuation was cemented by a distinguished spell as Chief Sub-editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. I wish the project success, unlike her other demand for a nursery here of 'Cabbage' White butterfly caterpillars, hundreds of which are threatening our winter brassica supplies.

The whole family meanwhile enjoyed this lively and pun-packed piece of entomological journalism which you can read in full here. I have often mentioned a favourite book of mine on the advantages of eating insects, still available at the Museum of Natural History in London, whose author would have much-commended Nando's for adding this ingredient. Its inclusion belatedly explains the reason for the title of this post. And I will leave you with this intriguing picture of a family of Forest Bugs on the mercury vapour bulb of the trap. This gets warm and - I think, though I have never tested it - probably quite hot, so I can hardly imagine that they sat there while it was on. I failed to notice, but they were in position pretty soon after I turned the power off and arrived to inspect the eggboxes, warming their toes.