The Brightness of Burnets

I like to do a very long walk around Midsummer's Day, taking advantage of the long hours of daylight to test my ageing body and bones' ability to slog on. Both passed with flying colours as I marched from Tadpole Bridge, where a couple of Scarlet Tigers jinked about in the warm sun, to Pinkhill lock where the riverside meadows had Six-spot Burnet moths aplenty.

It's a while since I've seen one of these although an observant cousin spotted one on similar coastal meadows in Cornwall last week and I remember them vividly from schooldays in Herefordshire. 'Vivid' is the word; it is so nice to have a really brightly coloured moth and what's more one which flies by day. Like the Scarlet Tiger, it's almost an honorary butterfly.

Not that there's anything second-best about being a moth; but there is some justification in doubters' suggestions that too many of them are small and dull in colour. They are often on the wing as the males spend thgeir lives searching among thistle and knapweed for unmated females. The Burnet family in the UK numbers ten, most of them very local, but there is a well-know colony of their Forester cousins near here which I must seek out when time permits.

Moth trap visitors meanwhile included another cousin, the Cinnabar, above with a micro, which is very common round here and especially strong in numbers. All these moths are well-guarded from predators by their glaring warning colours which are shared, albeit in yellow and black, by their caterpillars.

I also had the Smoky Wainscot above, well named with its sooty streak along the basic Common Wainscot colour and patterning, a Common Wave (I think), the Horlicks tablet micro Agonopterix arenella and a Single-dotted Wave.

And bringing up the rear, a couple of Mottled Rustics and a Plume which I think is the Brown one but I need an expert to tell.

Finally, as another treat in terms of bright colours, here is Common Blue from my Thames walk - common maybe but blissful little fragments of bright blue in the overwhelming green-ness which surrounds you - and more evidence that this is a Painted Lady year. I saw them consistently over the 20-odd miles.