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.