Austen's anachronistic moth

 Hats off to a fellow poster on Upper Thames Moths' Facebook page,  Dave Morris, who noticed this highly unlikely arrival at the early 19th century window pane of 'The Other Bennet Sister', a BBC drama re-working Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice':

Barring an incredible feat of aviation from the Far East, this Box Tree Moth is roughly 200 years too early. It was first recorded in Europe in 2006, in Germany, and made its debut in the UK two years later. 

As Dave notes about the Collared Dove, another extra in historical films from time to time, this is worth pointing out, less for the error as an example of how carefully some of us watch TV.  It may be added that the Box Tree Moth is also appropriate to an Austen drama; so many stately homes of the kind portrayed in her books have had their garden hedges ruined by the species' voracious caterpillars. Spiky-penned Jane would surely have had something to say about this, or some human parallel to be made.

Penny and I were at a particularly beautiful and not much-frequented stately home today, Nuneham Courtenay near Oxford, where I spied this Comma among many Brimstones. They follow yesterday's Small Tortoiseshell to make three butterflies so far this year. Meanwhile the moth trap continues to attract a modest but respectable list of overnight guests, with a Brindled Beauty and Small Quaker joining the previously-recorded Hebrew Character, Common Quaker, Oak Beauty and Clouded Drab on this year's garden tally.

                                  

Mother's Day beauty; and my first night of moths in 2026

 

Hello world! I am back in action after a very leisurely start to the year, caused partly by days and days - and nights - of wet weather and partly by issues with my exceptionally faithful and long-lasting moth trap mercury vapour light bulb.

This is the all-important means of attracting moths, for reasons still debated by entomologists. In recent years, safety regulations have made the bulbs harder to get and I have been frankly too lazy to set about this task.

Luckily I don't need to, yet. Yesterday I cleared out our shed and found my box of MV bulbs, mostly expired and in some cases with a screw fitting instead of the pin one which my trap needs. On a whim, I decided to give the 'used' bulbs a final try. The first two were as dud as I had assumed. But the third works!

Hooray! And here is the first moth it has attracted in 2026, a lovely Oak Beauty.  I would have given it top billing but I had a delightful Mother's Day encounter with an exquisitely fresh Small Tortoiseshell  butterfly nectaring on Blackthorn, or Sloe, in a scruffy hedge bedecked with abandoned traffic cones where one of our local footpaths briefly skirts the A34.  So that picture heads the post.  

Here are just a few of the cones, below. We were taught at school that John Constable always included a small dash of red in his predominantly green, blue and brown landscapes.  So, to look on the bright side, he might well have welcomed these.

There were three other species in the eggboxes overnight and here they are: five Hebrew Characters, again fresh like the Tortoiseshell with their pinkish thoraxes, a Common Quaker and that unfortunately-named moth, a Clouded Drab.

Belated happy New Year!

Goodness, it's been a while since I posted. I have woken from my Winter torpor after a friend emailed from Brazil saying that he had been showing this blog to one of his friends. I felt ashamed that what they were seeing was so out of date.

There are a couple of reasons besides the slowing down which gradually comes with age. One is obvious: this is not a very interesting time of the year to be looking for moths. The other is technical: my mercury vapour bulb started playing up shortly after my last post in November and I have not yet sorted that out. It may limp on, or I may have to source a new one, which is getting harder because of various electrical regulations. 

Anyway, I have a moth picture! Actually two. They are not new although they were last Winter when I first came across a little colony of over-wintering Buttoned Snouts in the cobwebby gloom of an outbuilding. This week I was crawling around there and discovered that they are still happily settled.  My first two pictures show ones which I disturbed, the second rather worse for wear, no doubt after encounters with cobwebs and other obstacles in its dingy home.

They are not alone there, so far as insects are concerned. My activities triggered several bright flashes of colour as hibernating Peacock butterflies were disturbed. I'm glad to say that they went back to sleep, as the weather outside was foul and anything capable of hibernation was well-advised to keep slumbering.

 Here's another one in the house, disturbed when I got down a book and then choosing a dangerous new 'bed' in the event of grandchildren coming to stay. I carefully picked it up and tucked it away on a shelf, getting a fine display of those lovely wings before it folded them again and went back to sleep.

I have often said here that although human beings have the advantage over moths in most things, I am jealous of their antennae which we lack (unless they are hidden in our heads/brains; I am not qualified to rule on that). Hibernation is another quality which many of them have but none of us. Rip van Winkle, alas, was fiction.