Crash landing

The hawk moth season is still going strong, especially among the Poplar Hawks and Privets. One of the latter fell drunkenly off its perch on an eggbox - shown left - while I was examining other moths and did a very good impression of a nosedive on to the lawn. It stayed there, apparently not discomfited, until I cleared the whole paraphernalia away about 20 minutes later.

Meanwhile, P and I are about to spend a week celebrating our Ruby Wedding with family and friends. How appropriate that we have just been visited by a Ruby Tiger moth. These little jewels are usually reluctant reveal their lovely, pinky-red hindwings but they will sometimes offer the world a glimpse of their bright red breeches and equally bright, banded body. The sequence below shows one moth gradually allowing us to see more - though not the whole, hidden thing.

Next we have a Crambus micro-moth, perlella I think, and finally a small wave of Waves, those graceful Laura Ashley moths: a Lesser Cream Wave on its own and a Small Fan-footed Wave encountering a Single-dotted Wave.

Enemy No 1

There are many unsolved puzzles in the world of moths as readers of these musings, weary but ever-patient with my fumbling attempts to ID the many tricky species, well know. One of the simplest is illustrated above: in the morning, when I examine the eggboxes in my pyjamas, I am not the only interested party.

Our local birds, especially the robins and blackbirds, know exactly what is going on: they are with yards - inches sometimes in the case of the boldest robins - of the avian breakfast of all time.  I do everything I can to protect the moths - scattering them into a wide range of bushes, up-ending the trap so that moths can exit but birds cannot get in, or putting it in our shed/greenhouse and shutting the door.  This works in one way, by excluding the birds, but also imprisons the moths and risks the liveliest battering themselves silly against the windows as the day warms up.

And, as you can see from this snapshot, there are PLENTY of moths at the moment. It's the height of High Season. There must have been over 300 in the trap last night. So Moth Protection is a system under construction. I would welcome others' experience or bright ideas.

In the meanwhile, some nice arrivals: the year's first White Satin with its zebra stockings. It's very like the Yellowtail, apart from having no yellow tail, a feature which gives a vaguely fried egg appearance to the YT.

Next, a Plume micro; the Brown Plume, I think, though I am far from expert in the tiddlers. And then a nice contrast of Footman moths: first the Scarce Footman with its wings furled tightly like an umbrella. And then the Common Footman, more of the classic capsule shape which distinguishes most of this family.

And finally, a sweet little Small Fan-footed Wave, one of the most delicate of the 'Laura Ashley' Wave moths.

Macabre end

Sorry to start with rather a grisly picture but, as anyone who studies Nature well knows, she is sticky in web and venomous in sting, as well as being red in tooth and claw. In the sunny weather we've been enjoying for quite a few days now, my eye was caught by an unexpected glint and glimmer in our greenhouse. It turned out to be this spider-captured (and -killed) dragonfly.

Another curiosity was a butterfly in the moth trap, not an unprecedented event but very rare. With the current long Summer evenings, it wasn't fully dark when I lit the lamp, which probably accounts for this Meadow Brown spending the night in unusual company. I've been looking back over past Julys to check various moth arrivals and, lo and behold, I turned up this identical butterfly overnighter (left) three years ago.

Among the moths, it was good to see the Lunar-spotted Pinion, above, with its distinctive crouch. It is a very occasional visitor, so nice to have one back.

This next arrival, above, though quite a handy size, is actually a micro, Hypsopygia glaucinalis by name and one of the largest of the tiddlers' tribe, whose caterpillars have the distinctive habit of eating thatch. I must keep an eye on the children's treehouse which is thatched with reeds collected by myself with much effort from the River  Cherwell.  The catties also eat bits of birds' nests so I will encourage them in that direction. Penny and I keep finding old nests during the endless but enjoyable pruning and cutting-back which comes with trying to manage our garden.

I puzzled over my third moth for ages and eventually gave up and asked the experts on the Upper Thames Moths blog. Their leader Dave Wilton kindly tells me that it is a Green Arches, a lovely moth which doesn't figure on my records list. Actually that is an oversight as I trapped one in Leeds during the first year of this blog, 11 years ago. I need to update the list anyway, as it happens, as previously unrecorded species arrive every now and then.

Here are two of them: a Small Blood-vein, above, which I have got on the list but without a picture to prove it, following a big muddle I got into over this species and the rather similar Small Scallop several years ago. So that's sorted.  And below, a male Dark Umber. In July 2015, I trapped what I am pretty sure was a female (second picture) but never confirmed it with anyone and so did not list it. I will now put both to Upper Thames and hope for double confirmation.

The next moth may be a third new arrival, a possible Galium Carpet which spurned the trap and snoozed on the adjacent wall instead. Because of the species' similarity to the Common Carpet, the latter's variability and the poor photo, I am tacking it on to the presumed Dark Umbers in my UTM blog query.

As for the rest, we have below a Poplar Grey, a Lime-speck Pug (one of the very few pugs I can safely ID), a Carpet and a Small Emerald which scooted off the trap's lid when I opened things up but only as far as this nook in the un-mown grass.

Leopard and Drinker

My title this morning sounds like one of those odd English pub names you come across which are sometimes genuine but sometimes artificially created as deliberately quaint. It refers, however, to two excellently distinctive moths which have graced the trap in the last couple of nights.

The female Drinker is a curious beast indeed, here being admired by Elfrida, our only statue who supervises a corner of our garden with imperturbable calm. I have loved this moth for many years, since pre-teen school days when we found their caterpillars sipping dew from the top of grass stalks, a habit which gives the species its name.  The caterpillars are very fine creatures too, with a coat resembling Little Lord Fauntleroy's blue velvet. The male moth is smaller, like one of the hubbies in Bamforth seaside postcards.

The origin of the Leopard's name is obvious. It is a strange moth, large and flimsy like one of the early biplanes. It has something of the wasp about it too. And on that score, my final picture shows a waspish creature which likes making underground nests in gaps on our patio.

Here are the wasps - the first one definitely has the look of one of those emojis which sprinkle the children and grandchildren's messages these days.

Shining brightly

My headline was originally inspired by the Burnished Brass moths which feature below but it will do just as well for these beautiful Silver-washed Fritillaries which I visited today at Bernwood Forest, a famous butterfly haunt by the M40 on Oxfordshire's border with Buckinghamshire. You can sere from the first two piuctures that a butterfly's life isn't easy, even for a grand and powerful species like this. The top insect has a chunk taken out of its left hindwing and the right forewing of the one below has become 'unhinged', tucked behind the hindwing rather than on top of it.

People go there to Bernwood in search of Purple Emperors and I am pretty sure that I saw one of these, swooping down from their usual perches high in the oak trees, to either flirt or do combat with one of the fritillaries. I cannot be definite, however, because it could also have been a White Admiral, another particularly lovely UK butterfly. I feasted my eyes on one of these half an hour later but it was too far away and too skittish for me to photograph.

Here's a pair of fritillaries, however, and another closer view of an underwing, below. I have to say that I am not a fan of Bernwood. Like reservoirs as opposed to natural lakes, forestry land always seems a little regimented and unnatural to me. It is also a great haunt of dog walkers but for once the resulting poo has a benign effect. It is the prime attraction for the Purple Emperors when they do deign to descend from on high. For all their aristocratic name, they like to eat...well...you know what.

At home, the moth trap produces Burnished Brasses every night and I can never resist photographing them. In this quartet I have tried to get the metallic reflection in different spots, with some but not spectacular success.

Next comes a streaky-stripy micro which I have yet to identify and finally a delicate little moth pretending to be a butterfly by borrowing the latter's way of holding its wings vertically above the back, rather than folded on it. I shall delve further.

Update: Paul has very kindly saved me the trouble (and the inevitable danger of possible errors on my part) by suggesting Eucosma cana for the micro and the Dingy Shell for the 'butterfly moth. I am sure that you are right, Paul - many thanks as ever.

Up in the air

Two welcome airborne arrivals here: the first, a graceful and initially completely silent hot air balloon which drifted quietly overhead as I examined the moth trap at around 7am.  It caught my eye in the way that moving things do in your peripheral vision, even if they are only drifting along as sedately as the balloon. A few minutes later, when it was almost directly overhead, it would have given away its presence had I not already seen it,  as its pilot turned on the heat-burner and there was a loud and prolonged Wooooosh!

My second guest was this lovely Peach Blossom moth, one of my favourites ever since I first encountered one as  a schoolboy not yet in my teens. A lovely name and a lovely pattern and colouring. What more could I ask for?

The eggboxes also housed about half-a-dozen specimens of another very pretty moth, the Marbled Coronet. By happy chance, two rather different ones were snoozing almost side by side and here they are: