There's not going to be anything flying tonight apart from the odd drowsy Winter Moth and possibly flights of angels. So here's something different, inspired (if that's the right word) by my debut in a Nativity Play this year at the age of 63 as a shepherd. (I was too badly-behaved to be picked at school)
Before the shepherds had left their flocks
Or the Wise Men breasted the hill
Which looks down on the place where Jesus was born,
There was someone else. On the sill
Of the Bethlehem stable there perched a moth
(Cymbalophora oertzeni)
And along with a spider - top right - he first
Saw Joseph on bended knee
Raptly looking at Mary his wife
And the baby so strangely born
As a model of how we should lead our lives
On that first dark Christmas morn.
So whether you're man (or woman) or moth
Here's wishing you joy and good cheer
And remember to log on when Martin's Moths
Starts again in April next year.
Merry Christmas one and all and all the very best for 2014!