Glistening Gold

A lovely bright visitor came to the trap on the eve of Penny's birthday - this Gold Spot with its shining wings made up of light-reflecting and refracting scales. It is one of the best of UK moths to use in arguments with those who believe that all moths are small. brown and eat cardigans.

My beautiful thumb gives some scale in the picture above while the one below shows the colours in a slightly different but equally accurate light. There is another species called Lempke's Gold Spot which differs from this one so slightly that dissection of genitalia can be required to sort them out. Such surgery is not for me.

The Ruby Tiger below is another brightly-coloured moth although not an all-round star like the Gold Spot. You have to look closely to see the red knee-breeches shown here and the moth is very reluctant to show its pale ruby underwings except in flight.

Two stars in monochrome next, a Sallow Kitten and a Leopard moth followed by a dainty and unusually smokily-ribboned Small Scallop.

The season of Jersey Tigers has begun in the South of England, very striking, day-flying moths with their black and cream-striped top forewing and even more dramatic orange and red hindwing, usually visible only in flight - hence my rather exciting blurs. The second picture below shows the moth reflecting a very pink sunset at my grandchildren's home in Wiltshire. They are often understandably mistaken for butterflies but have a much crazier, wildly jinking flight.

Moths such as these may have helped to encourage the Royal Mail to produce its excellent new series of stamps based on moths. My late mother-in-law, who was always very interested in my moths until her death aged a week short of 101 just before Covid, wrote to the Post Office and Royal Mail asking for a set exactly like this one. Hooray that her letter has finally reached the top of the pile.

Two littlies to end with: a Common Carpet pretending to be a butterfly above, and a Double-striped Pug below with the eggbox scale to show exactly how small the moth is.

Arches, Hums and Blurrs

 

After the excitement of the Mocha as my first completely new arrival for a while, the moths have continued a high quality streak. The Black Arches, above and below with its fine antennae, is the first of the darker examples I have had in the trap; normally the area of the forewing suffused with different greys in this example is a plainer black-and-white dazzle pattern.

It was also good to find a Hummingbird Hawk nectaring on our main flower border in very hot sunshine although it skimmed off rapidly before I could get closer-up and hasn't yet returned. Ditto a fine Red Underwing which I disturbed during daylight from the gloom of an outside doorway - the usual way you see this striking, large moth because it seldom comes to light.

Unlike the Hummingbird Hawk, the Red Underwing has made a comeback, however. Our very nice neighbours, who are also learned in natural history, took an action-packed video of a second one (or possibly the original, as it flew off in their direction) zooming dementedly round their house. I won't treat you to the full, action-packed film but here are some stills, blurry because of the high-speed flying but showing the crucial glimpses of red.

They were round here in the afternoon and went home to find the moth still in residence. So, another session of Attenborough work by them and another frame clipped by me, again showing the red - and also how fast these moths fly. With many other species including the Hummingbird Hawk, you get a clearer image in a video clip. Not with Red Underwings.  Many thanks Neighbours!  Maybe the moth will pay us another call when it has spent enough time with you.

For the rest, here is a head-on view of a Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing followed by that gleaming scrap of a micromoth, the Pearl Veneer or Catoptria pinella, which is no bigger than a sunflower seed.

The composite pics below meanwhile show the wealth of 'ordinary' overnight guests in the current lovely weather - from the top left: Campion, Scarce Footman, Riband Wave and Dark Swordgrass, followed by Purple and Gold or Pyrausta purpuralis, Common Rustic, Small Magpie with a Sallow Kitten and Small Scallop. 

Finally, this Yellow Shell in the eggboxes, below, gives me a chance to compare my photo with the one in my last post of the same species disturbed by day in the hedge round our neighbouring Big Field where they are common. Modern iPhone cameras are a blessing beyond description, but the digital system can play pop with moths' colours and patterns in different lights.

Mine's a Mocha

 

Two posts ago, before our holiday in Greece, I was saying how unusual it is to have a completely new arrival in the moth trap. That was in the context of an overnighting Lunar-spotted Pinion which I thought at first was a debut, but then discovered in my records of quite a few years ago.

Today's star moth really IS new and it's one which I've long hoped-for: the Mocha, with its delicious pattern and colour reminiscent of a cup of frothy coffee. That's where the name comes from; in 18th century England when the entomologists were drawing up names, Ethiopian coffee was often known as Mocha after the Yemeni town Mokha through which it was exported.  The coffee frequently had a chocolatey taste which played its part in today's use of the word for a mixed coffee and chocolate drink. 

The Mocha is quite a scarce moth, categorised as Nationally Rare B, but I suspect that it may have been here before and gone un-noticed by me because I have always had the idea that it is quite a lot bigger than is actually the case. Here is the first photo I took of it on one of the eggboxes, showing how it actually comes into the overcrowded spectrum of the Riband Wave, Fan-footed Wave and many others of that size and pale colouring which are very common callers.

The moth trap is extremely busy on these heatwave nights with hundreds of arrivals, the smaller ones completely unmanageable. Here are pictures of the very smallest which comes in shoals and whose identity defies me, and others showing how many of the little white web-spinning ermine micros are turning up.

Ermines feature too in these next photos of a pair of Red Twin-spot Carpets followed by a Common Carpet and then that subtly delightful moth, the Tree-lichen Beauty whose discreet greens and greys are a feast for the eye and worth a prolonged look.

Ruby Tigers have started coming to the light, the smallest of a very brightly-coloured tribe. They have a remarkable glow, even without the sun on their backs, and fine red underwings and knee-breeches on their front legs.

The first Dusky Thorn of high Summer paid a call as well:

Out and about, I disturbed one of the many Yellow Shell moths which live in the hedges round our local Big Field and are very easily roused by passers-by. Back home after the walk, we had a hawk moth whispering sesssion with one of my sisters who is staying with us; the big insects are very docile and everyone enjoys the slightly tickly experience of having one clinging to a finger.

This striking micro below meanwhile intrigued me and I have enjoyed tracking it down in the Micromoth Bible. The AI identification which is now blessedly standard on my iPhone is very good but cannot produce a completely trustworthy ID for a little splinter of moth like this. It's Epiblema foenalla which is actually rated common, although I do not recall seeing one here before.

Two other micro visitors also defied the AI ID which guessed that they were American species - and to be fair, always warns me hat it may be wrong. The first is Calamotropha paludella, a tricky one to nail down and for a while I thought that it might be the macro Silky Wainscot. It is only locally found. And then we have Udea prunalis, a fairly regular caller pictured alongside part of my knee. A welcome development in UK moth affairs is the gradual giving of vernacular names to all UK micros via iRecord and these are respectively the White-foot Bell, the Bulrush Veneer and the Dusky Pearl. 

Two special macro favourites from the eggboxes next: the lovely Herald which pays visits from May onwards, and the pale, creamy Swallowtail moth, on my finger and through the trap's sort-of transparent cowl.

Now for a trio of dainty moths in the Same as the Mocha category which I mentioned above: a famously-misnamed Single-dotted Wave, a pretty Least Carpet and a Latticed Heath,  the moth which thinks that it is a butterfly because it always holds its wings folded up vertically over its back when at rest, an unusual habit for a UK moth but invariable in our butterflies..

And so to a Yellow-tail, discreetly hiding the reason for its name, and finally both forms of that menace to owners of neat hedges, the Box moth.  Quite a haul today and more of the same, I suspect, tomorrow.