Captain Beaky

Human features can be deceptive, for example when a face seen directly from in front looks well-proportioned but a sideways view reveals a prominent chin or nose. Ditto with insects. This fly or wasp above seems handsome enough, if you like such creatures. But look below: It's a Cyrano de Bergerac of the insect world.

What it is, is another matter. I'd be grateful if anyone can tell me (Update: and now Katie in Comments has, for which many thanks indeed. See more below) , if only to add interest to the current quiet times in the moth trap. Wet and surprisingly blustery weather has coincided with the usual mild hiatus between summer and autumn moths. There are plenty of visitors in the eggboxes but only occasionally something out of the ordinary.

Above are a couple of Marbled Beauties, very pretty moths, and below a rather heavily-barred Carpet which I'm afraid I can't immediately identify.

Next a Bloodvein and a Green Carpet, both with attractive TV aerial antennae,

And a Coxcomb Prominent, one of several from the distinctively-shaped Prominent tribe which have been calling by all Summer.

Lastly, a very ordinary photo of a very ordinary Small Tortoiseshell; but for some reason, it's quite unusual to see butterflies in garden centres in spite of the vast nectar banquet on offer. This was one of the exceptions.

Update: And so back to my strange fly-like creature which Katie helpfully IDs in Comments as a Scorpion Fly. If you follow the link she gives and Google further, there is much interesting information about this curious creature, including the fact that males can be killed by females during night-time mating. Possibly because of this risk, they often present their partner with a gift such a dead small fly, a habit which I've also noted among spiders in past blog posts.

As for the name, steered by Katie, I found this excellent picture, left, by David Nicholls on Nature Spot which shows the male genitalia - and the reason for 'scorpion'! Further update: as you can see from Katie's second Comment, I should have said 'Scorpionfly' rather than Scorpion Fly because these curious beasties are not actually flies. They are Mecoptera (meaning 'long-winged' in Greek. This may seem a nice distinction but, as Katie points out, clarity is all in these matters, especially now in the age of the internet. Mind you, if you Google, you will find that nearly all references divide the word - ie scorpion fly - so I fear that this particular battle may be lost.

Small and dusty

A visit to London yesterday on grandchild duty brought me another new moth: the Small Dusty Wave, above, which was slumbering on an area wall in the comforting glow of a security lamp. Its midget size makes the pebbledash look like the boulder-strewn craters of the Moon.

The moth is like a grey version of the Small Fan-footed Wave, which does call here, and also easily mistakable for one of that infuriatingly hard-to-ID tribe, the Pug Moths. The Moth Bible warns of this risk and I can bear it out, having puzzled over several pages of Pug illustrations in a vain attempt to track it down. The clue to its real identity, for me at least, lies in the black dots in its hindwings. Lots of Pugs have a dot on the forewings, but none go in for one on the hind ones.

'Small and dusty'. incidentally, is a good description of the grandchildren after a lovely time yesterday at the fake beach in the Olympic Park, above, which is wonderfully well-used.

Back here in the trap this morning, there was one of the finest examples of an Orange Swift I have had the pleasure to see, above.  This is a hugely variable moth in both size and colouring - and pattern, with in this one. And that is quite apart from the fact that males and females each have their own different looks.

Inside...

...out

Other visitors included this matching pair of Willow Beauties, one inside the moth trap's cowl, the other outside. And the trap played host to yet another Poplar Hawk moth, below, followed by two Flounced Rustics and the engaging 'bull's horns' micro Pammene aurita.

The Moses moth

No doubt you remember the story of Moses in the bulrushes. Had there been an entomologist involved in the Scriptures, he or she might have added a little colour about today's moth.

It's a Bulrush Wainscot, one that I haven't had here before although it's not uncommon, especially in places with plenty of bulrushes. We have fine clumps of them on the canal.

The Bulrush Wainscot is a chunky moth, much bigger than the Common Wainscot and its immediate relatives which are quite frequent guests here. It also has a fine dusting of spots and streaks.

The most interesting thing about it, however, is the way that its caterpillars burrow into a bulrush stem, bore along like a small Tube train and then make the stalk their home, a home provided with free food in the form of the walls and a snug place for pupating when the time comes. The excellent pictures below are from the Moth Bible

I'm minded to add a verse to the Bible - the real one, not the mothy version - to incorporate one of these in the Moses story; perhaps a talking one which could advise the floating baby when there was danger from Pharoah's men.

Angling in

It was nice to spend a bit of time this morning with an Angle Shades, one of the most distinctive of UK moths with its swept-back wings and steeply-raked V-shape on either side of its tail. As well as this fine silhouette, the moth has a very subtle mixture of colours on its wings, including delicate pink round the 'eyes' and a very delightful shade of green.

The moth's camouflage is very effective to the extent that it tends to rest openly by day, rather than undercover. Like an umbrella, it has the ability to furl and crease those fine wings which adds to the cunning of its defence against predators - a variety of slightly different ways to break up its mothy shape.

I have always imagined the Angle Shades to be a very nippy flyer, with its jet fighter appearance, and this morning I saw the proof. I coaxed the moth on to my finger where it warmed up over a period of about two minutes. The photographs below were taken well into this process when it was vibrating its wings prior to take off. Then, whoosh! It was up and away. To my alarm, my monitoring robin came streaking in over my shoulder and I thought that that was that. But no. The Angle Shades jinked right, the robin  veered left in confusion and the moth made a safe escape to a bush.

Also in the eggboxes: the Pebble Prominent below and a couple of Common Carpets which I include to show how colouring can differ, depending on the camera angle, background and light-and-shade.

The Brimstone moth is very common at the moment, along with Orange Swifts, and that's not only in the trap. Can you see all three Brimstones in the picture below, resting on a nearby shrub.

Finally, I couldn't resist going for a butterfly hunt in today's blissful sunshine. I got pictures of Common and Holly Blues, a Brimstone, a Meadow Brown and some sort of skipper. But this female Common Blue was the only one, of about 25, to be properly in focus.

Copper mine

A fine new moth for the year arrived last night - this Copper Underwing (or it may be a Svensson's Copper Underwing, a species so similar that people like me have no hope of telling them apart). It is a striking moth; as soon as I saw it in the eggboxes this morning I thought: 'Aha! Not seen one of those since late last summer'.

Getting it to show its copper-coloured underwing is something else again. The best I could do was lure it on to the edge of an eggbox and sneak up from behind. These moths are tremendously jittery and scurry about the eggboxes like frightened mice. They are strangely reluctant, however, to use their ultimate defence of takiong off and flying away.

Earlier in the day, I stalked and finally photographed this Holly Blue butterfly, a species which only opens its wings to reveal their darker blue colouring very rarely. Then it was back to moths with this Pale Prominent, weirdest of creatures, a Setaceous Hebrew Character and something whose identity I need to puzzle out.

Down the size scale, here are two slightly differing examples of one of my favourite micros, Pyrausta aurata, the Mint Moth, the second one fearlessly defending itself from s wasp.

And to finish up with, a smart Flame Shoulder and a lovely, glintingly metallic, Burnished Brass.

Battered

I am regularly asked, when the conversation turns to moths, how long they and butterflies live. The answer, inevitably, is complicated. Although my general reply is 'Not long, on the whole' (given their frailty and the number of predators hunting them), there are some sturdy exceptions to this rule.

I was reading about the Brimstone butterfly yesterday, for example, and discovering that it is one of the longest-lived of UK species, with examples on record of a lifespan of 11 months. The much more robust-looking Emperor moth, by contrast, lasts only a few weeks even if it leads an entirely uneventful life. This is because it does not eat.

I Googled 'longest-lived moth' just now and came up with the likelihood that hawk moths have the best chances of prolonged survival, not surprisingly because of their size. We are still talking only of a matter of a few months, mind you; although the full life-cycle of the Arctic Woolly Bear moth, Gynaephora groenlandica, can take a startling 14 years. This is because each Arctic summer has only a very short period when it is warm enough for the caterpillar to develop, which it therefore does in annual stages, with long and comatose deep-freeze periods in between.

I am burbling on like this because today's moths are chosen for their battered condition - a run of visitors recently have shown every sign of having had a hard life. Most interesting for me is the Poplar Hawk in the first four pictures; I wonder from the traces of colour on its body and, to a lesser extent, wings, whether if it might be the uncommon buff-coloured form which I have never seen.

Here, below, are examples of fading in two regular visitors, the Green Carpet and the Flame Shoulder, the top one in each case having lost the sheen of youth:

Next, a Herald which has survived quite well but which I include because I love the distinctive shape and attractive colouring of the species and can seldom bring myself to deny them room. The same applies to the very small Carpet moth which follows; I think a Red Twin-spot although I am often wrong.

Here, too, are a couple of examples of the hazards a law-abiding moth can face. I put the trap close to our heavily-protected strawberries and Brussels Sprouts (I fight a daily war with Large and Small White butterflies over the latter), and here are a Canary-shouldered Thorn and a Brimstone moth pondering how to escape from the mesh.

Finally, two pictures which combine age and youth: a smart-looking Single-dotted Wave beside a very worn Straw Dot, and a neat, youngish Riband Wave examining a tattered Mother-of-Pearl micro through the (even more battered) transparent moth trap cowl.