Women in white

The first night of trapping for a week produced an overwhelming guest list in the Eggbox Hotel which coincided with a delightful visit from our granddaughter. This combination, although welcome in every way, made a thorough examination of the mothy arrivals impossible. Describing even those which I did manage to record would also make this a very long post.

Dress sense- grandchild and matching moth 

Accordingly, I am adopting my strategy of the last week, when Penny and I were on holiday, and feeding the information out in tantalising daily instalments. Veritably a Charles Dickens of a moth blog, although I cannot guarantee the sort of cliffhangers which kept his readers subscribing to Household Words. Today, too, we briefly acknowledge one of his great friends and fellow writers, Wilkie Collins, by examining some Women in White.

This first one fascinated me and I was relieved to find it slumbering in the trap when I finally got to take a prolonged look. Earlier on, it had been fluttering wildly, trying to escape.  It is either a female Yellow Tail, whose shape it resembles, or more probably the somewhat rarer White Satin moth. I plump for the latter because, as in the picture below, it has zebra legs which are a feature of WS but not the YT. It is also the moth in the picture at the top of the blog which shows no yellow tail.

On which subject, here is an undoubted Yellowtail below, with its trousers which bring to mind that old  rhyme:  

Anne Boleyn had no britches to wear

So King got a sheepskin and made her a pair.

Leather side out

And woolly side in

Eeh, it were warm in summer for Anne Boleyn.

Except the Yellowtail wears its trousers right way round.

I spoiled the late afternoon kip of a couple more Yellowtails when I was hosing the veg patch yesterday and there were two more sleeping on long grass and dead cow parsley near the trap this morning. They flash the yellow tail when tickled, an occupation I also enjoy employing on the granddaughter.