Bit of a back-blog

The nights are still cold and this morning's trap was sparse, which came as something of a relief. My lockdown passion of sending everything I can to iRecord has given me a bulging camera file of spiders, flies and goodness knows what else; I hope that the iRecord experts will tell me eventually.

The creatures at the top of this post, for example. I've sent them to the app as 'flies', but maybe they are wasps. I also hope that someone else will tell me whether they are mating or fighting. I got as close as I could but the pointy tail of the top one rather scared me off. At this time of the year, we have a nasty little creature in these parts called the Blandford Fly whose bite can be a pain, literally and for a while, if you don't rush inside and whack on the soap and Savlon straight away.

I've also been preoccupied with my mighty composite Fives sketches - 26 of them in lieu of running a marathon for National Fives Day to raise money for the excellent food-distributing charity, The Felix Project.  I gave you a glimpse of the early stages of one in my last post, as the background to a strange little jumping spider. I can't recommend Fives too highly as a fun occupation. I am totally unsporting but enjoyed the game as a boy and now, imminently 70, am doing so once again - or will be, when sports centres re-open.  You wear gloves, which is good in virus times, but there's no way that players can keep two metres apart.

Moths first; and there's been a good bit of modest variety in the last week, heralded by the lovely bright colour of these Brimstones, above. They are so bright, that my camera focus goes awry when I try to photograph them; or sometimes the light and their glow combine to make them look paler and more lemony than they really are.  There are also some lovely chips of colour in this little micro, Cochylis atricapitana, below - a pinky blush and delicate dabs of blue on the leading edge of its folded wings. The second picture shows its insignificant size compared to a mighty egg box.

Other welcome newcomers for the year included the Pine Beauty and T-shaped Common (I think) Plume below, while a furry-trousered male Pale Tussock made a return visit.

In the busy and brain-challenging Pug moth department, I played host to these three which I think are respectively Oak-tree, Common and a greyer form of Oak-tree. Please feel free to correct. 

And here are a trio of black-and-white arrivals: a pretty little Clouded Border and a couple of White Ermines, the 'House of Lords moth' in its ermine robe. One is pretending to be in a tent while the other looks philosophical, though actually the wording following 'Understanding' is 'Egg Codes'.  There is a lot of rather recondite information on eggboxes which all moth trappers get to know.

Finally, from the moth world, we have a red Twin-spot Carpet pretending to be a butterfly, alongside a comrade adopting the more usual resting position; Poplar Hawks are coming pretty much nightly; and I have the familiar 'What on Earth is this?' type of brown and indistinct species to end up with:

Butterflies are meanwhile pottering about in the continuing, wonderful sunshine which is such a compensation for all the miseries and frustrations of the lockdown. Those of us with gardens are blessed indeed. I stalked this heavily-marked Green-veined White for an enjoyable while. Their topwings seldom have the veins so well-defined, in my experience.

Caterpillars are beyond my ID powers when they are like this little, looping green chap. All I can tell you is that he or she lives on hazel. I was cutting peasticks when I spotted him or her, all part of our massive veg-growing effort.  In our loo, we have an entertaining booklet called 'Why Not Eat Insects?' which has a mouth-watering section on the culinary merits of caterpillars. I have eaten them in Zimbabwe many years ago, but can't say I found the experience a treat. So this one and its fellows are safe. For now.

And finally, a composite of other iRecord beasties and a Copse Snail, which I correctly identified all on my own. Hurray!