Playing safe

 

The nightly possibility of lightning strikes is making me wary about lighting the trap. I don't want to blow up the fusebox and anyway, after the family's holiday here and uninterrupted sessions at the eggboxes, the moths deserve a rest. But here are a couple of leftovers from my recent guest list.

First, a Clay with its sharp little 'eye', a grass-feeding species at the caterpillar stage and very like the immigrant but recently established resident, the White-point. There is another cousin found in the UK, the White-speck which is rarer but has been here once. They all share the scientific first name Mythimna, taken from a Cretan city in prehistoric times, and they have a lot of foreign relations:

Blimey!  Imagine Christmas parties and family weddings. My second arrival is this neat Small Bloodvein, quite a common moth but one whose caterpillar is so withdrawn that it has seldom been found in the wild and its foodplants are not absolutely known.