After a week away - our first holiday abroad for three covidy years - I couldn't have asked for a better returning gift from the moths: a Clifden Nonpareil in the trap, somewhat battered but evidently at home in spite of the drought. This is the fourth year running that I have recorded one or more here, after a lifetime of certainty that this wonderful creature was something that I would never see. More on that here, in my post about the debut Nonpareil in mid-September 2019.
Here is Saturday night's arrival as I first found it, with the Hebrew Character nestling alongside to provide useful scale. The Nonpareil is one of the UK's largest moths. And here it is acclimatising itself beside a windfall plum, opening its wings to reveal the glorious blue bands - such a rare colour in moths, giving a glimpse of its delicate underwings and finally in a short video, scarpering off:
Blue has been a theme of our return home; in the greenhouse, we found the sad little scrap of a female Holly Blue; sad but also very useful because this is a butterfly which invariably in my long experience rests with its wings shut tight, never opening them to show. Its underwings are lovely, a sort of chalky, gentle-dotted duck egg blue, but it is a treat to see the iridescent topwings:
The blue - my favourite colour just as my youngest grandchild sticks staunchly to green - extends beyond the world of butterflies and moths. Our Morning Glories have just come into flower and are covered in buds. The chickory meanwhile produces flower after flower - some weed!
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