A flake or a twig?

It was a surprise to find the trap empty of moths this morning, apart from a solitary Hebrew Character, given the sunny weather yesterday (nicely timed for the birthday of one of our neighbours) and a lovely start to today. But I see from the BBC Weather site that temperatures at night are still as low as 6C, so that may explain things.

Not to grumble though, because there was another surprise - on the outside of the trap, where this extraordinary beast was snoozing. It's a Pale Prominent, looking just like the sort of length of Cadbury's Flake I used to get as a child in a family of four sharing; or a broken twig. Either way, another masterpiece of Nature's camouflage.

This brings to four the number of different species of the stylish Prominent family that I've encountered in our first month in Oxfordshire. The PP is rated as 'common' but that doesn't dim my pleasure because I have never seen one before. I tried photographing it from various angles and here are the results. Now to get ready for more weeding