Elegant arches

 

A distinguished visitor at the beginning of every September is the Feathered Gothic, which I consider to be my 'architecure moth' because of the way it almost exactly imitates the framework of a mediaeval Gothic church window.  The fact that it fills the gaps between its lines with modest shades of grey and even black only adds to its appeal as a design type. Varied or bright colouring would risk cheapening the effect.

Its caterpillars form a sort of lawnmower as grass is their foodplant and they start eating the blades and then creep down when a little older and demolish the stem. Perhaps this slender diet inspires the narrow lines of the wing design. I don't suppose that this thought could ever be proved. But equally, it probably can't be disproved either.

Another seasonal regular is the September Thorn, above, the plainest of the interesting Thorn family whose members share this crouching posture, a little butterfly-like in the holding of the wings above the body rather than flatly folded across it like most UK moths. Alongside it in the trap last night were a couple of Small Blood-veins, a third species which flies towards the end of the Summer.

The most interesting moth in this post, however, called on a neighbour rather than myself. She emailed me anxiously with the photo below, asking if the insect was in some way crippled or damaged when emerging from its chrysalis. The answer is no; it is the delightful and very distinctive Lilac Beauty which adopts this curious creased and folded-back technique on the leading edge of its forewings when at rest. The effect makes excellent camouflage as it resembles a dead leaf.

I have only ever had a Lilac Beauty here once, in July 2013, and here is its photograph below. I posted about it at the time and you can read that here, time and interest permitting.

Always on the go

Perpetual motion doesn't exist as I understand it, although I am no scientist, but the Hummingbird Hawk moth comes as close to achieving it as anything I have seen. I have spent much enjoyable time trying to photograph these busy nectar-feeders as they dart about on sunny afternoons and only once have I seen one stop in flight.

Today's photos are rare for me, therefore, taken thanks to Penny spotting the familiar triangle sight of a moth afloat in a puddle caused by this week's extremely welcome rain. When we carefully salvaged the inect and put it gently on a plant, it came to rather erratic life, staggering about but unable to use its soaked wings. These later dried-out but here is the moth pictured while it was immobile with its hair looking slicked with Brylcreem. 

It brings my hawk moth tally for this year to six, along with the Poplar, Privet, Large Elephant, Eyed and Lime; a modest total compared to previous Summers which have seen both the Pine and Small Elephant arrive regularly and, once, a Broad-bordered Bee hawk. I still dream of Silver-striped and Convolvulus which others have hosted during thi sunny Summer but not me. So far.

The unexpected arrives more often than usual, however, and I have just had a modest example of that on a walk across Walthamstow Marshes from my younger son's home in Clapton to a niece's in Walthamstow. The parched landscape resembled Death Valley more than anything watery and I didn't expect to find much of interest en route.

Instead, I first glimpsed this little dot of red in the overwhelming sandy-brown, then watched a Clouded Yellow fly hectically past and managed to photograph a Small White, Small Copper and lovely Common Blue.  I have often remarked on how beautiful these are in spite of their dismissive name. The same goes for Holly Blues which have become one of the dominant butterfly species of the English suburb. 

There were flowers dotted about the apparent desert and the butterflies had found them out.

Back home, the moth trap is busy but pretty routine and here are some visitors from the last few days. In each case clockwise from the top left, we have have Flounced Rustic,  Single-dotted Wave, European Corn-borer and Gold Triangle, the last two both micros which I am now describing by their very welcome vernacular names instead of the heavy duty Greek and Latin mixture of the Linnaean system.

Then we have Light Emerald, Black-headed Conch, Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing and Straw Underwing

Next Willow Beauty, Spectacle, Red Twin-spot Carpet and Common Carpet

And finally, a Riband Wave in two forms of the digital camera's light-gathering,  a vivid Purple and Gold and a spidery-looking Orange Swift.

Incy Wincy

I was so intoxicated by the beauty of the Adonis Blues in my last post that I missed the most interesting detail in my photos. By contrast, it was spotted at once by a nurse in intensive care which I was visiting this week.

Here it is, above. Among the butterflies which I photographed was this inert one on a stem of grass which at first I took to be dead. When I examined it more carefully (but not carefully enough!), this turned out not to be the case. In my relief, I carefully removed it and placed it on the leaves of a scrubby bit of hawthorn, out of sight.

What I failed to notice was that it had been entangled by a spider, a small creamy-white crab spider which the ICU nurse saw straight away. Here it is in more detail from my main photo with apologies for the blurring:

Eek! A reminder both to be more careful and of the unsentimental and dangerous world in which the small clouds of Adonis Blues live at Yoesden nature reserve, a little paradise in the Chilterns. A paradise with a serpent, or at least a spider.

I need to remember such lessons in patience to pass on to the family, friends and neighbours who have been sending me pictures recently of the current crop of caterpillars searching for somewhere to pupate. Here are, respectively, an Elephant Hawk moth larva (initially mistaken for animal poo), a spectacular Pale Tussock cattie and one of the 'woolly bear' family spotted zooming across a shingly beach by great-nieces and a great-nephew in the Western Isles:

My sister and family on holiday in Sweden have meanwhile been enjoying a butterfly paradise, with Camberwell Beauties (my most revered UK species), High Brown Fritillaries, which I once caught as a schoolboy on the British Camp in Herefordshire, and that fascinating species, the Map Butterfly. This has two startlingly different seasonal forms, the July one shown here by an artist, Helen Kejser Højlund, whose studio my sister discovered on a long bike ride in Denmark; and the earlier May generation, shown in a photo from Wikipedia. 

I initially mistook Helene's picture for a Scandinavian White Admiral but then remembered the sad story of how this butterfly was successfully introduced to the Forest of Dean and Symond's Yat in 1912 but then ruthlessly hunted down by an eccentric collector, Albert Farn, who bore grudges against several contemporary entomologists and believed that no foreign butterfly or moth should be introduced to the UK.

As the great Professor Edmund Ford says in his masterful book Butterflies in the Collins New Naturalist Series: "His arbitrary action was an improper one; for he should at least have consulted a considerable body of entomologists, for example the Royal Entomological Society, before taking a step which was by no means his personal business alone."   Ford adds how interesting the Map is and what a welcome addition it would be to the UK's very limited number of butterflies and concludes: "I would not object to a further attempt being made to naturalise it in this country."  Perhaps someone might heed that clarion call.

Beautiful Blue

A cunning trade-off yesterday saw Penny and I buying towels (and playing Wordle) at John Lewis on the edge of High Wycombe, and then driving the five miles to Yoesden Bank nature reserve off Bledlow ridge to see if the Adonis Blues were about.

We have paid several annual visits to this little Paradise whose conditions exactly suit the ravishing butterfly by providing unimproved chalk downland rich in horseshoe vetch, the caterpillar's foodplant, and plentiful sources of nectar for adult butterflies. The Chilterns form the current Northern range of the species, though perhaps it will copy other butterflies and moths in current climate conditions by moving North. 

Oh, and it helps to have sun, which duly shone down yesterday while we pottered round the long triangular field which is the heart of the reserve. We saw at least 50 of the vivid blue males and as many again of the brown-coloured females and in one case a vigorously courting couple, shown above and later flying while actually attached. Photography was tricky in the bright light, which makes it almost impossible to see what the lens is showing, and the blues tend to move on rapidly from each nectar stop. But we both got some reasonable pictures.

Some of them show the ravishing, almost fluorescent sheen on the wings and we found one rather comatose specimen, above, which allowed a closer look at the metallic gleam of its wings, battered and torn in this case but glorious. The two photos below are sadly out of focus but I have added them to show the shine.

The Adonises were so all-absorbing that it was difficult to pay attention to the many Small Heaths, Hedge Browns and occasional Vanessid butterflies were are also populous on Yoesden Bank. But I followed a milky-blue Chalkhill Blue male for a while before getting this photo below of his potential mate.

A glorious afternoon! My previous visits on either side of the Covid outbreak are recounted here and here.

Clockwork Moth

My Clockwork Moth came two nights ago, the neat grey Pale Eggar which I first mistook for one of the Kittens, Sallow or Poplar, with their distinctive pattern faded. It has the same light grey tones and crouching habit when at rest with its wings spread broadly over its back like a cloak. It was very dozy and allowed me time to take plenty of photos while I pondered what it might be.

My nickname for it comes from its regular habits; it first called here in 2015, then 2020 and 2023 and now in 2026. After the initial five year gap, it seems to have settled for an appearance every three years, perhaps because its caterpillars are known to overwinter for a second time, although not always. It cannot feed as an adult insect and therefore leads a short life. I am grateful to be included in its rounds.

By contrast, I have learned a little more about a different visitor, the Lime Hawk which I mentioned two posts ago after iRecord responded with an initial 'Out of season' automatic message. Similar visits have since appeared on the Upper Thames Moths Facebook page, all of them new to their recorders at this time of year. The long hot Summer has clearly brought us a second brood which is very unusual for this fine species.

The trap continues to attract welcome new visitors for the year such as the Toadflax Pug below, a very small but beautifully patterned member of a family whose other members can be dull and infuriatingly difficult to tell apart.

 

One of its companions was a Purple Thorn whose delicate mauve is an absolute delight, and no fewer than six Oak Hook-tips, one of my moth success stories of 2026.

Meanwhile the butterflies continue to be out in force although they must be having a hard time finding nectar, a problem at least avoided by the Pale Eggar. Lawns and borders everywhere are shrivelled and brown or sandy-straw coloured. Last night, we were lucky enough to visit friends whose boat is moored at the end of the beautiful community garden of St Ethelwold's in Abingdon which is watered from the Thames and not affected by the hosepipe ban. What a relief and delight it was to enjoy a fabulous display of flowers and a green, green lawn.  I often think about the intensity of colour in everyday things like the sky on a clear day or the English countryside in normal conditions. This was another example and hugely refreshing.

On the butterfly front, here's another of my examples of a not terribly good picture of the underwings of a Holly Blue which was flitting around our patio yesterday, sipping any moisture it could find and resolutely refusing to show its glorious azure topwings although you can enjoy them indistinctly when it is in flight.  And a fantastic photo of a Large Copper by a friend of my older sister's with a wonderfully toning background. Thank you for the treat!

I'll just round things off with three more of Friday/Saturday night's moths: a Poplar Hawk in fresh condition, a Latticed Heath in its usual 'Let's pretend I'm a butterfly' mode and a lovely bright Centre-barred Sallow.

The Bee and the Virgin Bud

 

The biological imperative to mate is fantastically strong, as anyone interested in natural history soon discovers. The birds and the bees...and in this case the bees indeed, via a telling spot by Penny who saw this bumblebee struggling to get at the un-touched nectar inside a tightly folded virgin hibiscus bud.

Goodness, how it tried! But in vain although its liberal dusting of pollen showed that it had been successful elsewhere. In the end, it gave up reluctantly and settled for a fully open flower. 

Appropriately or otherwise, we spotted this Smiley on the thick coat of pollen covering its rear end. 

The episode got me wondering how the many butterflies brought out by the endless sunshine of this Summer are finding nectar in a countryside scorched by drought. Here are some which discovered lucky solutions, starting with a Painted Lady in our local garden centre.

The Oxford University Botanic Gardens were another good place to look. They are exempted from the hosepipe ban and although they are being prudent and the lawns are desert-like, the herbaceous border is lovely. Interestingly, Golden Rod is flourishing in the climate-related 'Merton Beds' which are never watered. Plenty of butterflies were flitting about including the Red Admiral on the left which chose to rest after a spell on the ever-popular buddleia on one of the visitors' benches. Like its relatives the Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell, the species often basks on pre-warmed brick, stone or wood.

Here's a Peacock below, resting this time on crumpled paper close to another small oasis whose owners live in a terrace by the Thames.

So to a few moths. I forgot to record the Vine's Rustic on the right below, perhaps looking jealously at its more distinctive Rustic relative, the Flounced. I often miss undistinguished moths like this, possibly including newcomers, try as I might to be thorough.

News of other people's moths: my younger sister spotted the Small Dusty Wave below on a German sleeper train and learned that in German it is described as the Grauer Zwergspanne or Grey Dwarf. It was first recorded by a German scientist,  Franz von Paula Schrank, in 1802 so their name perhaps has the prior claim. Schrank was also a priest and presumably much like the English country clergy who became great naturalists for want or neglect of other things to do. 

Cousins in the West Country meanwhile enjoyed a rare visit from a Convolvulus Hawk moth, a rare visitor and the UK's largest moth. Penny and I memorably enjoyed the company of one at another cousin's wedding in Cornwall some years ago.  And a friend of my older sister's in France had the ultimate butterfly delight of meeting a Two-tailed Pasha, the Continent's finest butterfly. We saw them in the same village a few years ago, an unforgettable experience which I posted about here.

And lastly, a sign of life in our own scorched garden where the flowers are struggling to keep up nectar supplies. A Common Field Grasshopper looking like a small version of the doomladen Biblical locust.