You may know from previous posts, if you have put up with my ramblings for any length of time, that the Clifden Nonpareil has a special place in my heart. As a boy, this was the moth I dreamed of seeing most, knowing that it was all but impossible for this to happen in the UK.
And then, about ten years ago, reports came in of occasional sightings in the South. Gradually they became more frequent. By 2018 there had been several in Oxfordshire. And in 2019 the glorious day came when one arrived in my light trap.
Since then, they have visited every year except 2023, usually in mid-September. But this year my first came remarkably early, on 7th August. Since then, they have stayed away, until Friday night. Look what I fiund when I sorted the eggboxes (blessedly free of hornets now that the weather has gone colder).
It was a fine-looking specimen in the eggbox and when seen from below and was sleepy enough to submit to my amateur methods of measuring its size.
But when I enticed it to reveal its hindwings on the relative safety of our bedroom windowsill, they were alas sorely-faded. Very little remained of the dazzling blue which makes this species so special.
I released it on to our wisteria and then sorted a comparison on my iPhone with the vivid example which came back on 7th August. Note, though, that this early one had already gone prematurely bald, perhaps after a collision or a bird or bat attack. The new one was much more hirsute in spite of the faded colour. Perhaps the latter happens simply over time as is the came with the Emerald moths which lose their luicious green colouring within a few weeks.
Other visitors were welcome too: several Rosy Rustics, a Least Yellow Underwing, a ghostly Pale Pinion, a shy Shuttle-shape Dart and that modern success story among relatively recent immigarnt moths in the UK, a Cypress Carpet.
No comments:
Post a Comment