Quartet

There are not very many moths which rest with their wings in the steeply angled posture of the one above. So I am pretty confident, as I come to examine the four arrivals shown today, that this is a Treble-bar. Not that life is ever simple. There is also a Lesser Treble-bar and a Purple Treble-bar, which are annoyingly similar, and also a Manchester Treble-bar which is a favourite of mine.  This is because it flies the flag of Manchester in the mothy world, a role it once shared as I describe - forgive the plug - in my book True North:

A textile worker called Robert

Cribb, did the city a good turn in 1829 by discovering an insect now

known as the Manchester moth on Kersal Moor in central Salford, a

wildish, Hampstead Heath-like green lung. He captured some 50 of

the yellow and brown species, scientifically known as Schiffermulleria

woodiella, but got into an argument over rent with his landlady, who

burned his insect collection. Only three Manchester moths were

salvaged but as none has ever been caught since, this has given the

species the distinction of being among the rarest moths in the world.

When the story was retold at a meeting of the Royal Entomological

Society in Manchester in 1951, a Manchester Guardian leader noted:

‘We are not cotton-spinners all, sang Tennyson. But he might have

been a bit more respectful about these parts if he had known about our eminent moth"

Meanwhile, back down South, here is a nice little Carpet, I think a Red Twin-spot, and below a Bright-line Brown-eye.

But what is this, creeping modestly into a nook?  Could it be our well-named friend, the Uncertain Moth? Answers warmly welcomed, as usual.