Tawny and Dots

The headline today sounds like one of those TV police duos such as Starsky and Hutch. Actually, it's a couple of nice but unassuming moths. One of them is new here - provided that I have identified it correctly, which regular readers will know is a big 'provided'.

Here it is and I think it's a Tawny-barred Angle, although I wondered for quite a while if it might be a melanistic or dark form of that familiar regular, the Riband Wave. This led me to a fascinating website thread by birdwatchers which you can read here, all about moths' internal genitalia and including a photograph of a Gatekeeper butterfly apparently trying to mate with a Painted Lady.

That sounds like something out of fiction, too. Mind you, the Painted Lady always has done; even as a child I used to wonder if it was slightly disreputable. Here's the second half of today's pair, meanwhile: the Straw Dot, below. A nice little moth which apparently has recently become scarcer in the north of England. So a special welcome.

Beautiful visitor

The Swallow-tailed moth. What else can I say? Very familiar but very beautiful, and for once my camera hasn't picked up any reflected glow from the black of the trap bowl. If you know nothing about moths, you may have come across this one. It is drawn to lighted windows on summer nights, as well as to traps like mine.

The Brown China-mark is another lovely moth and Sherlock Holmes would make one deduction about my garden from its presence. "Drag the pond, Watson," he might say, as the pair of them search for the body of one of the fiendish Moriarty's victims. "The pond? My dear Holmes, how can you tell that there is a pond?" "Elementary, Watson. If there is a Brown China-mark moth, there will most certainly be a pond. Its caterpillars feed exclusively on aquatic plants.'

Update: just how good a detective would M.Wainwright really be, though? See comments...

Little and large

Big, small and in-between in the trap this morning. At the big end, this Poplar Hawk is in very good condition, and interesting proof of how long generations can last. The first one this year arrived as long ago as 26th May and its generation has been recorded as late as early August, with a second one sometimes hatching in August and September in southern England. But emergence from the chrysalis will be staggered within the period, like London buses, and I'm sure that this one can only have hatched recently. I'm glad to have caught its maroon blotches and also the weird way it slides its underwings forward beneath the forewings. When fully 'sheathed', they stick right out in front.

In the middle range, here's a boldly-patterned Dark Arches, left, and our variable friend the Mottled Beauty, below right. Both species have been visiting for at least a month but, again, these two look very fresh.

And finally, that familiar micro with its sort-of specs pattern, which completes a trio of long-lasting species. Examples have also been arriving since May. For once, I managed to find something to give scale and show how titsy it is. On my first study of the eggboxes, I missed it altogether. It pays to have a second look.

Not a lot about moths

I usually spend time here bewailing my inability to identify small brown and/or grey moths. There'll be another example in a mo. But first, here's some triumphant identifying of human beings, including myself when young. Even though we're grey too, or at least black and white.

I think I mentioned some time back that a flurry of nostalgia among my old university pals has led to much emailing of photos, mostly of elderly gents (we were all boys in 1968; the girls had to climb in), but including the original of the blurred one I use in the little blog corner about who I am (or was).

This coincided with one of the regular outbreaks of 'Oxbridge mafia' charges at The Guardian which always get some readers excited about a supposedly contraband list of members, including my innocent self. There's no secret about any of it. For better or worse, I was at Merton College, Oxford, in the good old revolutionary days and here we all are: my fresh-faced year in 1968.

I'm the saucy one three from the left in the front row, looking as though I'm enjoying a private joke with a moth. But more interesting is the guy with the Beatle cut two rows back from me, two from the right. That's Sir Alec Jeffreys who has done more good than the rest of us put together, through his work on DNA fingerprinting. The chunky guy to his left is Chris Laidlaw, then a New Zealand All-Black who I see from his Wikipedia entry is keeping the spirit of '68 alive, huzza.

When we all exchanged emails with pics of us as old giffers, Sir Alec apologised that his had the curious catchline 'stamp' - left over from an initiative by the Royal Mail which sadly apparently has to wait until he is in Heaven. Personally, I say: 'We demand a commemorative stamp for Sir Alec Jeffreys now!' And now, before I go and have my breakfast, here is yet another mystery moth, below. Does anyone know what it is? A Snout of some kind? A Fantail type? And does it really have a green sheen, or is it picking that up from the eggbox? I just clicked on it to enlarge it, btw, and notice that half of its left-hand antenna is missing. Poor thing. Update: Ah-ha, Gotcha! See Comments.

Head-on view

It was a bit of an exciting day yesterday, what with the News of the World imploding. I was down in London at the Guardian's head office when the news broke and it was one of those moments which won't fade quickly from my memory. Actually my own role in events was characteristic; I had was just sitting back contentedly after finishing a story about...moths. It's linked here, and you may be interested in joining the great Horse Chestnut - Save Our Conkers survey.

Meanwhile the lights have come on again all over the world, as Vera Lynn sang; at least they have in my garden. Above is a quizzy creature for you. Recognise it? It's actually a common but very beautiful visitor as shown - don't look now - at the bottom of this post. Moths' faces are extraordinary, but this is what a flower would see, if it had eyes.

Meanwhile here is a tiny visitor which makes big headlines. The pip-sized Spindle Ermine is the moth which can weave those dramatic but harmless canopies of silk which occasionally take over whole lines of trees, parked cars etc and prompt Doomsday articles in, well, papers such as the News of the World. Talking of Doomsday, I came home late last night to find that there had been a major fall of hail. In July! But it's actually keeping very warm.

Oh and here's the quiz answer. The good old Burnished Brass:

Mmmmmm.....

On Tuesday I was jealous of my American friends Sarah, Greg and family and their Luna moth. Today my envy is closer to home, with this picture from Kay Easton, a neighbour just up the hill here. She kindly sent me this picture of a visitor to her garden - very kindly, as work is still stopping me from trapping at the mo.

I spent ages taking pictures of these in Paxos last year and reproduce my famous (to me) 'miracle' photo of one below with its Heavenly sunbeam. But they're everywhere in the Greek Islands and altogether much rarer here. The last time I saw one in the UK was in Manorbier, near Tenby, when I was ten.

They do keep coming, though. I've been checking my ancient record books and the lists for Yorkshire compiled by George Porritt between 1883 and 1922 record instances from Barnsley to York, while describing the moth as 'very uncertain in appearance' apart from a scorching annus mirabilis in 1865. The excellent journal Atropos meanwhile shows that 27 were trapped at Spurn Point last year, one of the ring of coastal monitoring stations which I described in the Observer article the other day. Check out Atropos' great website, with its 'Live Flight Arrivals' icon - for moths not EasyJet planes.

Hoping Kay's lovely moth comes my way - though not to the trap. It's another of the daytime flyers.

Peek-a-Boo

Sorry I'm so late today; things have been busy. For the same reason I didn't switch the trap on last night although it was balmy weather. Tonight, maybe...though we've just had a very welcome sprinkling of rain. Things are getting to look a bit parched - it's interesting how quickly that happens.

Anyway, here are a couple of pals from last time the light was on. The Dark Arches above is saying in moth language, I am sure, "Leave me alone. Don't you know what time it is?" The Small Fanfoot below just looks so nice that I wanted to share it with the world. It's how I imagine Jane Eyre.

Finally, another quiz time, although this one is probably only for my kindly American pals unless there's someone very knowledgeable elsewhere in the world. My friend the excellent painter Sarah Meredith was dozing away the other night in the muggy weather they're having in upper New York state (where everywhere has familiar names such as Delhi and Cairo but they're all pronounced differently, eg Del-Hi and Kay-Ro). Then she heard a flutter or possibly a scrabbling and peering out into the darkness, beyond her eminent husband Greg's foot, she saw this beast on their window screen.

"

It was half the size of my palm - the biggest moth I've seen here since a Luna when we moved in," she emails. A Luna! Oh lucky America! Well, I've no doubt that it's a hawk moth of some kind, but does any Sphingidae expert know which one?

I wouldn't if I was you

I've been too busy to trap this weekend, though I watched some moths last night over a candlelit glass of wine outside in the gloaming. Yes, England really can be like this. So here's a picture I took on Friday of a bold Light Emerald about to go abseiling. It survived the experience and fluttered away.

In case you ever wondered, here's another picture from Friday showing what a moth trap looks like - to a human. The eyesight of moths is still the subject of much study but they seem to see a sort of kaleidoscope of images. You can imagine what a great big shining light, much too bright for we humans to stare at directly, does to a delicate system such as that.

And now it's quiz time. Does anyone know what lives in here, above? Spiders, I suspect. Or maybe insect larvae. I didn't think it right to disturb them, but please tell me if you recognise the architectural style.

And finally, right, all sorts of moths are venturing out into the sunlight when you brush past bushes. Here's one of those extraordinary T-shaped micros with the pleasantly human-sounding name of Emmelina mondactyla - Emma Singlewing. It has to unroll its wings like a Venetian blind before scooting away.

A blaze of unexpected colour - shield your eyes...

Yippee! This is more like it! I have dutifully brought you a series of small and interesting moths the last few days, but I have secretly been yearning for colour. Here it is! We're having a family bramble-bash/gardening marathon this weekend at my late Mum's garden, ready for a fun commemoration of her life later this month. The sun's blazing and the butterfleis are out - I'm glad to say; there haven't been as many so far in this warm spell as I'd have expected. I think it's coincided with a time when one brood is almost over and the next one not quite hatched.

AND the moths were out too. The two top pictures are a day-flying Six Spot Burnet which enjoys the sunshine as much as any butterfly and has an equal dislike of the dark. After posing on the thistle for a while, it whirred off like some bizarre helicopter until I found it again on the grass blade. The flight method is strange indeed but colourful, as the red hindwings are particularly prominent if blurred by rapid flapping. I'll try to catch one in motion with the camera today.

My bramble-bashing also disturbed lots of the pretty creature in the third picture - Yellow Shells which are sort-of day-flying in that they doze lightly in hedges and are only too pleased to take a little flight if disturbed. And the butterflies were out too: Tortoiseshell, Comma, the first Red Admiral I've seen this season, assorted Whites and this Meadow Brown (right - and look at its wing 'struts' like an old biplane's) and Ringlet (above, swoon). The last two were the only ones which settled long enough for my ageing photographic methods. They have mothy brown colours, but aren't they lovely? I still remember my excitement when I first caught a Ringlet in the old netting days. Probably around 1958... So here's another one - and below that, a couple of Meadow Browns getting ready to make sure that next year sees a good lot too.

Thumbnail sketch

"Ah, the pugs!" said a more experienced mothing friend not long ago. "Wait 'til you get to the pugs. You'll love them." Well, I'm not waiting, but the pugs are. For my love, I mean. I think the presumed leisure of retirement will be the only way to kindle passion, when there's time to sort out these tiny creatures which to my notoriously unforensic eye, all look alike. And there are about 50 of them, all classified as macro moths in spite of their diminutive size.

At least this one has various distinctions, especially that lovely russet colour, like a warm brick in the current sunshine. So I'm risking my tattered reputation to say that it is a Double-striped Pug (you can make out the double stripes too, just, slanting down the wings.) Meanwhile here is a micro on my thumb, to show how small they are. Mind you, it's not got to grow much to outdo a pug.

Sorry, I do bite my nails. Always have, always will. It's the only safe way. So-called 'nail' scissors tend to cut to the quick and I can't understand how to use those clipper things.

Minimalism

Tiny moth, tiny post. I tried the trap in a very shady area last night and the catch fell spectacularly. There were half-a-dozen Light Emeralds, three Mottled Beauties, a clutch of Hebrew Characters, Dark Arches et al. But the only novelty which caught my interest was this little chap on my dressing gown. So far I have Googled 'tortrix, micro moth, dotted and chequered' in various combinations without success. But as Che Guevara always said: 'La lutta continua. Hasta la vittoria siempre.' Or words to that effect.

Update: Yay! The mighty Ben Sale has done the business already. It's Lozotaenia forsterana, which doesn't seem to have an English name. So I hereby Christen it the Chequered Tortrix.

Spinach or Straw

I was hoping that this ungainly creature was a Spinach moth - not that they're rare or anything but it's such an intriguing name for an insect which has no obvious connection with Popeye and whose caterpillars feed exclusively on red and blackcurrant. They are at least green, with white lines, so perhaps that's the explanation. I shall browse on Google.

However, this isn't a Spinach but a Barred Straw, the only British moth to rest with its wings stretched out at what looks like an uncomfortable angle. It's common too but I haven't recorded it here before, so that's another one for my next list revision, along with the Short Cloaked, that oddity the other day which I compared to Moses on Pisgah.

Yesterday's intriguing beast turns out, as per kind and much-appreciated Comments on the post, to be a Ruby-tailed Wasp. It is a lot less nice than its name suggests, cuckooing its larvae into the nests of other solitary wasps and bees, where they eat their hosts. I never feel happy when the term 'un-natural' is applied to various undesirable or unpopular forms of human behaviour. Nature is awash with undesirable goings-on.

But here's a sweet little Single-dotted Wave to end on a positive note. Its behaviour is as demure as its appearance suggests.

I spy my little fly

Some pretty moths fluttered in last night, with pleasant weather continuing. If you are taking your UK weather reports from Wimbledon, you'll have the wrong impression of what it's been like in Yorkshire. Lovely and sunny, albeit quite a lot cooler and fresher at night than it was over the humid, sub-tropical weekend. The rainstorms only affected London and the south-east; and I'm glad to say that the radio has just chirruped: "It's a beautiful morning in Wimbledon." Hooray!

Anyway, I'm putting the moths on hold 'til tomorrow, to show you my interesting flies. People often raise an eyebrow when they discover you're interested in moths (soon lowering it, though, and enquiring about Watkins & Doncaster, entomological suppliers, after you've explained the fascination and beauty...) But flies?

Well, just have a look at these pictures, of what to the eye was a glinting but otherwise small and annoyingly buzzy speck trying to get out of our bedroom window. They almost make me want to be a dipterist, specially the one at the top which has some of that lonely appeal of ET - a small creature alone in a vast universe... How about you?

If anyone knows what this is, needless to say, I'd be delighted to know. Update: see excellent Comments - it's the lovely-sounding Ruby-tailed Wasp.

Hiding in the grass

A couple of mediaeval-sounding moths arrived last night. The Grey (or Dark) Dagger and the Gothic could well feature in one of the Waverley novels or a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Both perhaps fall into the smallish brown and grey moth category, from which arrivals such as yesterday's Ghost moth are such welcome exceptions; but their wing patterns are lovely and explain their names. Here's the Gothic in better focus, left, showing its intricate arches, like a church window. I say 'Grey or Dark' for the Dagger, incidentally, because the species are indistinguishable unless you examine their genitalia, which I don't plan to do.

The pair were among at least 20 moths which didn't actually enter the trap but settled on grass and plants round about and went to sleep there. A lot of moth recorders spread a white sheet under and around their traps and these seem to attract arrivals in the same way that a nice big bed with clean sheets does me, when I'm whacked. I saw this in action when I went trapping in North Yorkshire with Charlie Fletcher & Co in April for the Radio 4 programme Requiem for a Moth. It was impressive, but I haven't negotiated a sheet from our airing cupboard with Penny yet.

Meanwhile, here are some of the near-trap loiterers - pictures in order from top to bottom of the post: a Swallowtailed moth, the first of the season here but already a bit ragged; a Canary (one of a pair), a Light Emerald, a Riband Wave and a Clouded Border. There were also half-a-dozen other Light Emeralds, two Common Footmen and a Small Mottled Beauty and altogether it was a pretty sight.

Charlie has been emailing me kindly to identify moths, and says that he had 101 different species in his trap at Ripon the night before last. These are indeed the high days for UK moths.

Hamlet, 'tis thy father's ghost

I was going to tell you about a fascinating fly on our bedroom window last night, but this handsome creature appeared in the trap this morning and scooped my plan. It's a Ghost moth, well-named for obvious reasons, although the females have a different, buttery-streaked-with-orange livery. Actually they look like those novelty Wensleydale cheeses dotted with odd fruits which they make now at the 'Wallace and Gromit' creamery in Hawes.

The male here is more of a slice of camembert, although his underside is quite different. My specimen was very sleepy and so quite co-operative. I'm sorry not to have got the focus dead-on, but here he is from below; a sort of mushroom grey.

The Ghost adds a distinctive word to the vocabulary of moths: lekking. This is the term used for the male's distinctive habit of fluttering over one spot with a pendulum-like action, sometimes in numbers, while releasing a powerful pheromone scent. Powerful is the word because although it smells like goat, the effect on females is so overwhelming that they sometimes fly straight at the male and both tumble to the ground. There they get on with it, according to my moth Bible from which I am taking all this on trust. It adds, "mating pairs are conspicuous on low vegetation by torchlight."

This reminds me of footnotes in my school Shakespeare by an American academic called Kitteridge whose ability to detect naughty meanings in the text knew no bounds. He enlivened many a dull lesson and I hope he still appears in the editions they use today. I'll just end with a moth-in-motion pic - sorry, inevitably blurred again, but I wanted to see if the hindwings were white too and I had such a co-operative moth. They are.