August Visitors, but welcome ones

The Chinese poet Ch'ēng Hsiao warned long ago against admitting visitors in August because they came only to escape the heat and would ruin your own tranquility and the cool of indoors. But this is definitely not the case with my first two moths today, both of which I think are new to my list.

The first is the smallest Plume I have ever seen; its tinyness is clear, I hope, from being seen in the context of an eggbox below. I studied the micromoth Bible and concluded that it had to be a Hemp-agrimony Plume, Adaina microdactyla, which is substantially smaller than all the others - in the book it appears at twice life-size so that the remarkable artist Richard Lewington can do it justice.

Dave Wilton, the invariably kind and patient authority at Upper Thames Moths agrees and I have sent the details to iRecord under that name and will wait and see.  I may never be quite so definite with my second moth today which will probably have to remain a claim rather than a certainty.

Dave warns about the difficulty of identifying UK members of the Cyclophora family because they can be so similar, and also because some of the rarer ones have spread remarkably in recent years. That is the case with his best guess, a Jersey Mocha, which was first recorded in the UK only in 1999 and then belatedly confirmed after a dissection put its identity beyond doubt four years later. It has since spread both as an immigrant and a probable colonist and there have been eight records in the Upper Thames counties with other sightings recently. I did not keep the insect but the photograph has gone to iRecord so we will see.

The problem with this graceful family may be seen in my next moth below, a Maiden's Blush, and the family also includes the Mocha which came to me for the first time only last month and, although distinctive usually, can resemble these moths when faded. It would be agreeable to have a Jersey Mocha so soon after being visited by a Jersey Tiger, especially as I have cousins who hail from Jersey.

My undoubted Lime Hawk moth which also slept in the eggboxes has meanwhile been questioned by iRecord's initial robot-conducted sweep as 'out of season' which again shows the movements under way among our moths, doubtless because of the heat. It is my first this year and joy to behold. We may forgive it for arriving so late. 

Other graceful arrivals include two Oak Hook-tips, several delicate Common White Waves both in and on the scorched sandy lawn near the trap and finally on my pyjamas, and a Vestal. 

A Centre-barred Sallow brings intimations of early Autumn, the high season for the Sallows although we have weeks to go, and the Box-tree Moth is still around, the bane of neat hedge-growers.

Finally we have the micro Carcina quercana or Long-horned Flat Body - a strange name indeed among the welcome new English coinings - and a handsome Swallow Prominent from above and the side, showing its fine 'racing car' lines.