Red sky at night

When a neighbour told us that she had moved here because of the sunsets, we were polite but privately sceptical. After all, aren't they available all over the world? Maybe so, but we do have a fantastic record of them here, the sun catching towering cloud formations at just the right angle because of the lie of the land.                                   Friday night was an example. When I lit the moth trap (bottom right in the picture above), it really did look as though the world had caught fire. The show lasted long enough for me to fetch both the camera and Penny, who was equally impressed by the flares of red, orange and yellow.

Red sky at night portends good weather traditionally and that has certainly been the case, with more to come next weekend. Many of the worse memories of the pandemic will fade, I suspect, but the warm and sunny days we have enjoyed since late March will stay in the mind.

So far as the moths go, things have been less exceptional but well enough varied and interesting. We are between generations at the moment when things can go quiet, but fresh new specimens are arriving and there is plenty in store.  I specially like this Blood-vein caught from below, unusually for me. I'm familiar with the pink blush and bold red stripe on the topwings which give the species its name, but the delicate veining and smudging of the underside comes as nice surprise. 

The kitten moths are very pretty too, as you might expect from their name, and here are a couple of Sallow Kittens, the most common of the UK trio of Sallow, Poplar and Alder which form companions for the much larger Puss Moth (another regular visitor, although usually only once a year).  I'm adding a picture of a new member of our extended family on a visit here - Taco, an extremely endearing little Maine Coon cat which is now part of the household of our younger son and his partner.

Sticking with delicate moths, here are example of the two forms of the Riband Wave, one with its ribbon shaded (sorry for the lack of focus) and the other plain - although certainly not plain in the derogatory sense of the word. The latter was sharing the outside of trap's transparent cowl with many other moths, here including a Mother of Pearl micro at the bottom (they are arriving in hordes) and a Coronet with its subtle, indeed only just discernible tones of green

 

Another very common visitor at the moment is the Shuttle-shape Dart which always reminds me of my Yorkshire days, with the mark on its wings reminiscent of the flying shuttles in textile mills - deafening places whose workers used to be skilled in lip-reading as a result. Penny helped at an elderly people's day centre in Leeds where contests to demonstrate this talent caused much entertainment (and you had to be careful what you were saying!)  The Dart comes in two forms, darker and lighter, and within each, the female is darker than the male. Moth life is never simple.

Here are two more attractive regulars: a Nut-tree Tussock and a Herald, the latter one of two in the trap:

And here is evidence of our other visitors. Yes, the grandchildren are here for a week and we can actually cuddle them for the first time in months. Their finger-guests below are a Mother of Pearl - very restless moths so our grandaughter's belief in her 'moth whispering' calming abilities was reinforced, a lovely Marbled Beauty whose larvae feed on the lichen which it so much resembles - I hope none have ever tried to nibble a sleeping parent; and a Brown-line Bright-Eye, whose 'eye' is bright indeed.

The children also shivered in excitement at this non-moth resident tucked up harmlessly in an egg cone - favourite refuges of visiting moths as shown by the Large Yellow Underwing in the second picture. I am keeping a wary eye out for hornets which are due soon, though they are much less aggressive than their appearance suggests. Still, you need to be careful where you put your fingers on the eggboxes. No one likes to be squashed.

Lastly, butterflies are everywhere in the garden and I went for a walk round the wooded and amply-margined circumference of the local 'big field' to see if the same was happening there. Interestingly, it wasn't. While our buddleia and other flowers were attracting flights of Peacocks, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells and Commas, the lawn clover lots of Browns and the veg patch lots of Whites, all I managed to record were this ageing Small Copper and a Meadow Brown. There were plenty more of the latter plus Hedge Browns, but the skippers are few in number compared with a month ago and the blues which brighten up August have yet to take wing.