Tuesday 7 August 2018

A pirate's life for me



This continues to be a vintage hawk moth Summer, especially for Poplar Hawks. They get everywhere, as you can see above, and I have just come in after finding another four in the trap this morning. This is excellent in terms of the visiting grandchildren whose long-standing habit of taking sleepy moths on to their fingers has now developed into making elaborate nests for them out of leaves and twigs, decorated with toy jewels.

A by-product is that we now have moths all over the house, including a Poplar Hawk roosting (safely) down the loo, much to the children's mirth.  I did take a photo but am not convinced that it would be appropriate for a family blog...





Not that you need toy jewels when you have living ones such as the Gold Spot which is also enjoying a notably numerous season, along with the Blood-vein. Other pretty and welcome visitors in the last couple of nights have included, below, a Red twin-spot Carpet (I think - Update: sorry no; I've just checked online on the excellent UK Moths site and it's a Balsam Carpet. I've got a picture of an RTS ready for tomorrow), a Brimstone on foliage just outside the trap, an educational pair of the Swallow Prominent (left) and Lesser Swallow Prominent, the latter with its distinctive little triangle of white, a slightly streaky plume micro which is probably a Common Plume but might be one of the others (I will check) and a large green hawker dragonfly which whirred and clattered into our grape-filled greenhouse.

 





3 comments:

Conehead54 said...

Nice moths. Dragonfly is a female Southern Hawker.

Martin Wainwright said...

Thanks very much - she extricated herself from the greenery and flew off to freedom. Magnificent craetures, aren't they.

All warm wishes

Martin

Clinton B. Alvarado said...

These moths have a very strong camouflage ability, which is the wisdom that nature gives them.