The recent sharply divided weather - lovely and sunny by day but cold to the point of frosts by night - has divided the entomological world into two as well. Walking down the canal into Oxford yesterday was like being in a bygone era (at least in the eyes of many doomsayers about today's world) with Speckled Woods dancing all the way, lots of Orange-tips and occasional Brimstones and my first blue of the year, the pretty Holly Blue, above.
Pretty but irritating. It is very rare indeed in my experience for Holly Blues to open their beautiful wings when at rest and so the azure topwings, so visible in flight, cannot be seen. I can only remember one glorious exception, on a walk celebrating P's birthday in 2023 which took us to Maidensgrove in the Chilterns, where I managed to get the photos below.
A perfect male, almost certainly recent-emerged. I nearly died with excitement. And I'd forgotten but have just discovered while looking for the Maidensgrove pictures, that I got a reasonable glimpse of a female's topwing with its smoky black and grey tip, in the grandchildren's garden in London way back in June 2015, below.
Not a lot of excitement in the world of moths, however, though the tally of species new for the year creeps up. Here is a Muslin moth and below it an Oak Tree Pug, both of which shared the trap this morning with Hebrew Characters and a solitary Brindled Beauty.
I'm not putting the trap out when the evening's cold, which is the case tonight. More soon, I hope. April showers and cloudy weather seem to be moving in so we may get fewer butterflies this week, but more moths.
