Scorching - and that's not just the weather

I can never have enough of the Scorched Wing, whose camouflage is a marvellous example of 'dazzle', upsetting the eye's focus and blurring where the insect begins and ends. There was one in the trap last night, one on the rain shield and this one on the wall of the house. A satisfying trio.

Not all moths are blessed with lovely colouring of course, and here is the dull but worthy Brown Rustic which probably conforms to many people's idea of a British moth, just as so many of our birds are brown and small. But even this livery is interesting when examined closely and of course makes excellent camouflage on a wall or the bark of a tree.

Here's another exercise in broken shapes and colours, above, on the thumbnail-sized micro-moth Phtheochroa rugosana, a hard-to-say name in the cumbersome style of so many accorded to these little creatures. And next, a moth which has excellent colouring for disguise but also a burly hairiness which might put off an inquisitive bird. It's a male Pale Tussock, distinguished by its bushy antennae and the fact that the female is even bigger.

This is the sort of moth, above, which drives me nuts and I have yet to decide whether it's a Rustic of some kind or something different. After all these years, they faze me. If you recognise it, please put an end to my sufferings by telling me what it is. No such problems with the weird-looking pair below: one of the many maybugs or cockchafers which are coming to the trap at the moment, teaming up with a Poplar Hawk, which is also around in large numbers.

I posted a picture of a Coxcomb Prominent earlier and here is another, holding some kind of discussion with a Green Carpet, of which there are at least ten in the eggboxes every morning. Following them, another micro and luckily for me, a distinctive one: Hedya pruniana or the Plum Tortrix. Very good friends gave us a plum tree for our Ruby Wedding last year, so that may account for its happy arrival.

I normally show the Figure of 80 moth from the side as it tends to furl its wings tightly, but here is one from this morning's guest list which obligingly spread them out. It much resembles a Nut-tree Tussock in this position although the two are not related.

I shall have to check the rather dull carpet moth above on Upper Thames Moths' blog but for now, I suggest that it may be a May Highflyer.  Next we have two regulars both new for this year: the narrow-winged, rather fierce-looking Clay and a Shears, I think, although the little pairs of nippers on the wings are not as distinctive as usual. 

An easy one next, with that big pale X on its wings: a Clouded-bordered Brindle and after that a Mottled Pug, very tiny for a macro-moth and with its three distinctive little marks like thorns on each wing.

So to a Lychnis and, just to vary things a little, a Small Heath butterfly out enjoying the lovely sunny weather.

And lastly, a couple of pics of hawk moths which I find hard to resist as regular readers will know. Can you spot the Poplar and Eyed Hawks at rest on our garden wall? And behold a pair of Eyed Hawns on the hands of two visitors, one peeping, the other not.