December already?

 

I was going to blame my ever-increasing age, because I had pretty much forgotten this phenomenon from last year. But then I remembered that I forget it every year and have done since I first switched the moth trap on back in 2005. What is it? The fact that far from petering out, the moths put on a great show of numbers and variety as October hands over to November. 

There is one novelty this year, shown in my first picture. This is my first December Moth of 2025, adding to the muddle over months, with November and Autumnal Moths already in residence for quite a while. My previous earliest was October 30 last year so that's only been beaten by three days, but the debut of many species has crept backwards on the calendar in recent years. Will this in due course be definitively linked to global warming?

Meanwhile here's one of the afore-mentioned Autumnal, November or Pale November Moths mentioned above, slumbering dangerously close to a parasitic Ichneumon Fly. Below, behold three brownish brethren from the varied and plentiful guest list: a Large Yellow Underwing, a Turnip Moth and a Red-line Quaker. 

Moving along the colour spectrum to green, we have a metallicy Green-brindled Crescent and two of that wonderful moth the Merveille du Jour, one of them snuggled up by a wasp just as my first this year, described in my last post, was guarded by a hornet. Lastly we have a Red Green Carpet, a very pretty and nicely-streamlined little moth.

Another carpet moth (originally named from Chinese patterned carpets arriving in 18th century England for the first time) is doing very well after colonising in the UK only relatively recently. Here it is below: the Cypress Carpet with its distinctive black flashes. They come every night just now.

A few more: three or four White-points come every night, the Black Rustic more seldom and the Feathered Thorn infrequently.  Finally, we have a last - I am pretty certain - Sallow of the year and a couple of Autumnla/November moths, one of them closeish up and showing how delicate their superficially boring grey patterning is.