The Hawks keep coming

The hawk moth season started exceptionally late this year but it is going strong with plenty of Poplars and Elephants and often a Privet or two every night that I light the lamp. I've also had evidence of next year's brood in the form of this little caterpillar below which appeared in the eggboxes, I guess because I sometimes turn the bowl upside down over nettles and rough grass to protect the moths from birds during the day. my guess, from previous experience of hatching from unknown eggs, is a Poplar.

Plenty of interesting new arrivals are coming now that the weather is kinder, among them the big, plump Drinker moth with its distinctive way of resting. This moth goes back a very long way with me. Its name comes from the caterpillars' habit of climbing grass stems to sip the dew, a practice which makes them vulnerable to young collectors such as I was. Drinkers were the first moths I raised successfully in captivity when I was twelve years old and I still recall the catties with their handsome livery of velvety blue and gold. 

 Here's another cattie, found by my younger sister on Baildon Moor on the edge of Bradford.  I think it's an Oak Eggar, another species which featured in my youthful breeding activities.

The curious T-shaped fellow above is a Common Plume, I think, disturbed when I was blundering around in long grass looking for some conker saplings which Penny and I 'guerrilla-planted' in our neighbourhood earlier this year. And finally here are some of the other recent newcomers for your delectation:

From Top left clockwise: Variegated Golden Tortrix micro aka Archips xylosteana,  the Flame (superbly camouflaged as broken grass stem), Double Square Spot and a Lackey.

And these four are a Bloodvein, a jittery White Satin with its zebra legs and translucent, pure white wings, a Beautiful Hook-tip, one of my favourites, and a Brown China Mark micro, known more cumbersomely as Elophila nymphaeata.  Happy times!