Cautiously marvellous

 

The last Top Moth of the year has arrived as I hoped that it would, the wonderfully coloured and patterned Merveille du Jour. It has a high tolerance of pretty chilly Autumn weather and it certainly lifts the spirits of those of us creatures who prefer the warmth. Mind you, this year's arrival came in unusual circumstances as you can see above.

Our local hornets' nest sends a delegation to the light trap most nights at the moment and when I lifted the lid, a little later than usual, one of them was wakeful enough to scuttle under the protective cover of an eggbox. My kitchen tongues were to hand and I very gingerly moved the boxes, one by one. To my joy, I saw the Merveille; but it was in the very eggbox which the hornet and chosen as a hiding place.

Luckily the fearsome-looking insects are commendably docile in my experience and this one made no attempt to ward me off. I got my photo and then carefully placed the box under a beech hedge so that I could examine the other ones undisturbed. I was pretty sure from previous experience that it would buzz off within an hour so, hornets being marvels of the day ratrher than the night, and I've had no instances of the hornets attacking sleeping moths.

So it proved and I was able to move the Merveille to a drystone wall with lichen. Can you spot it above?  Here it is below from closer-up. It stayed there until lunchtime at least.

There has been quite a rush-hour of other moths in the last week, including the lurking Turnip and Sallow moths below, a micro whose ID I am still pursuing and another rather fine late Autumn regular, Blair's Shoulder-knot.

 

Here are a couple more pictures of the Shoulder-knot, the first one alongside an Autumnally russet Beaded Chestnut.

I've also played host to an Acleris variegana micro, known in the vernacular as the Garden Rose Tortrix though to me as the Love-heart Moth, a delicate and very pink-toned immigrant Vestal and a Brown-spot Pinion.

Here are a contrasting couple of many November/Winter moths, easy to dismiss as small, grey nonentities but often with clear and delicate patterns as in thie first example. The second is more the norm. Then we have a teeny-weeny Least Carpet and another micro, Carcina quercana or the Oak Longhorn, obligingly snoozing on the trap's transparent cowl and therefore shown from both above and below.

Finally, who knew that Green-brindled Crescents had eyes in the back of their heads? Not even me, until I took this pic of one snuggled deep inside an eggbox cone.