Doubling Up the Greens

My great pleasure at hosting a Scarce Silver Lines the other day has been doubled by the arrival of two more. Their predecessor had a torn wing but these are in tip-top condition and clearly a fresh generations, since this species normally flies in a relatively brief period between June and August. I can't post too many pictures of them - sorry - because their colouring is so scrumptious.

Here's a view of one from underneath, a different but still delightful shade of green. The moth fluttered off when I was carefully ferrying them from the moth trap's jumbled pile of eggboxes to somewhere more suitable for photography. Luckily it was too cautious or sleepy to go far and I followed its uncertain flight to this dead plant stem.  The two pictures below that shows my home-made moth ferry.

The second moth took up residence on the trap's transparent cowl, thus giving a full and interesting view of its plump body - a detail which makes me think that it is a female.

Here's a Mint Moth micro meanwhile, maybe hoping that the eggbox lettering helps to disguise its presence - a great many moths seem to seek the various descriptions, warnings and other printing to roost on. And after that, a series of pictures of the immigrant (and now almost certainly successful colonist) Silver Y, one of the very first moths I remember watching as it flew by day.

Next, my first Brindled Green of the year and then a Rosy Rustic, a species which has been turning up in samll numbers all Summer long, a bright Sallow and another newcomer for the year, the Black Rustic aka the Darth Vader moth.

And finally, a Small Dusty Wave, one of the titchiest of UK macro moths, and another of my frequent but beautiful Light Emeralds.

A Helpful Vestal

 The Vestal is a beautiful moth but also a very enterprising one, capable of migrating from the Continent to the UK every year in spite of its thumbnail size. It takes its name from both the air of purity given by the simple, delicate colouring and specifically the pinkish-purple band which resembles the stripes on the ceremonial robes worn by the eponymous women in Ancient Rome who ran the temple of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth.

My photos of Vestals are normally like the one below as the moth is almost always crouched with its wings tightly folded and seldom reacts when tickled or otherwise disturbed. I was lucky that a tumble of eggboxes temporarily disconcerted the one above and I was quick enough to capture the full spread of its wings.

It is a good time of year for fragile-looking 'Laura Ashley' moths and one of the largest and most striking is the Swallowtail, below. Almost ghostly in colouring and flight, it usually has a fairly brief, single flight window in July but the current weather has played pop with orthodoxy. This is probably a second generation example, freshly emerged from its chrysalis and blessed with the return of warm, dry weather.

The Light Emerald is another such but around in much larger numbers and for a longer period. Its lovely green is repeated in the humble lacewing, second below, whose wings when tilted in the light also glow with purple and pink.

The last of my regular sallow moths has turned up, the actual Sallow with its scrambled egg colouring, tones shared by the little micro Carcina quercana which has recently been given the very literal-minded English name of Long-horned Flat Body. The lovely pink background to the second example is Me.

Away from these pretty moths, we have a purposeful Lunar Underwing, a very common arrival now that late Summer is upon us, and an alarming-looking but sleepily docile hornet stumbling dozily from one eggbox to a second.

A Green Thought

Oh what a lovely moth came this week! A Scarce Silver Lines which is one of the greenest of the UK's relatively few green moths and very seldom encountered by me. Indeed I thought that this visitor was the seventh of the debut moths which have arrived this year, but on checking, I found that I have had one previous stay here in Oxfordshire; forgotten either through age or because I initially identified it wrongly as the more common (and also very lovely) Green Silver Lines.

Another came to my trap in Leeds in the first year of this blog when I noted that two had visited the trap four years earlier in 2004, the very earliest days of my light-trapping. So I must get my act together so far as my memory is concerned. Not an unusual problem at the age of 76, which is some consolation.

Meanwhile above is another picture of this week's example, showing its beady eye and, below,  a view of the delicious insect from overhead followed by another showing it inside the trap's bowl where the green seems to glow even more in the relative darkness; and finally a more distant photo of it next to a Small Fan-footed Wave to give scale. They are not very big moths.

 Here's the little Wave again below, along with my somewhat less elegant fingers, and below that a nice, sharply-patterned little Cypress Pug, a Toadflax Pug, a Riband Wave and a Small Bloodvein.

One of the things I always keep in my pocket is a small penknife because the saying 'You never know when you might need it' is absolutely true, I was cleaning it the other day, a process which involves getting all the blades out at the same time. I was reminded of this the following morning by this similarly-shaped group of Large Yellow Underwings.

Finally, this sadly-expired Small White, one of our commonest butterflies and a deadly foe of cabbage and other brassica growers, struck me as very lovely on careful inspection.  I zoomed in on its wings and then did the same with one of the many Centre-barred Sallows which are currently visiting, in an effort to capture the shining beauty of the scales.

Oranges and... Oranges

Another of the early Autumnal Sallow family arrived last night: the Orange Sallow with its simple colouring but very delicate pattern of slender lines. Given that all the Sallows are orange in one shade or another, it was lucky to be chosen to carry its simple name. But perhaps it deserves it on the grounds of elegance alone. 

Meanwhile another of the Mocha and Wave family paid a second visit, a Small Bloodvein, alongside an equally Laura Ashley-like relative, the Lesser Cream Wave in my second picture below.

It was good, too, to host a Red Underwing after a couple of weeks absence following my Light Crimson Underwing excitements last month. This specimen was a bit tattered and battle-worn but flew off powerfully after a few minutes of recovering and waking from its overnight sleep. 

Finally, here is an old faithful which makes regular appearances every few weeks in the trap: the Angle Shades with its rakish, jetplane shape and the leading edges of its wings furled, umbrella style, like the rarer Lilac Beauty, found by a neighbour, which I recently discussed.