Powder in May

There were 15 moths in and around the trap this morning - initially, I was going to say in various disappointing shades of brown and grey.

But it pays to look more closely and the power of the micro mode on my digital camera also helps. (Sorry for yet another pause in posts, incidentally, but the said camera's charger was also buried deep in our removal boxes until yesterday evening).

Please enjoy, as a result, the delicate beauty of these Powdered Quakers (I think; the third looks a little different and, as always, I would welcome correction if needed - and indeed, see Comments. Ben puts me right by identifying the first two as Small Quakers and the third as a Powdered. Thanks Ben!). They remind me, again, of the history of the Friends' Ambulance Unit in the First World War which I've just finished reading. Another nugget from it, relevant to the sort of work which goes on today in Syria and other scenes of carnage, was an account of the typhoid epidemic in Flanders at the height of the trench warfare of 1915.

Amid the terrible suffering, which included an infant survival rate around Ypres of nil after 12 months, the Belgian government with the assistance of the FAU and others managed to issue every household with chloride of lime sachets to make polluted water safe, each package accompanied by a free spooon with instructions for use in Flemish and French.  It's the kind of detail which keeps the whole, wider story fresh in your mind, and therefore very much the sort of thing I looked for in my work as a journalist.

Here, finally, is my first southern pug moth. Brindled?  I think so but will conduct further checks when fully unpacked. (No need, now. Ben has kindly confirmed that for once I am right).