Birthday moths

I know that we shouldn't anthropomorphise moths except for children, because sentimentality towards the natural world pays fewer dividends for everyone than a genuine understanding. But nonetheless, the local moths have an almost unblemished record over 15 years of marking my birthday with a special show. This year has been well up to the mark.

Ditto with the grandchildren and other family who have given me a bundle of lovely presents and cards, many with a moth or butterfly theme such as my grandaughter's gloriously-coloured Swallowtail on the left. I also got my first ever lapel moth with two attaching pins from an artistic niece. If I fall flat on my face, I will look like the victim of an unusual murder attempt, with two neat little holes above my heart. Will the fact that the moth is a Garden Tiger give detectives any false trails?

Another niece, her partner and their three daughters sent me this intriguing card, featuring a caterpillar which they had found the day before yesterday in east London. Does anyone recognise it? A hawk moth's? Or a young Puss moth larva? They kindly left it to potter about undisturbed. Update: Edward in Comments kindly advises that it is a Lime Hawk cattie in its third instar, or stage.

My inspection of the Birthday Moth Trap didn't start promisingly when my iPhone battery expired just as I was taking the lid off the trap for my usual early morning photo session. When I went back 20 minutes later with enough power for photography, the little Common Pug which had been on the cowl fluttered off at once and so did a Clouded Silver which had been snoozing in the top eggbox.

These are lovely little moths, and I managed to follow its wavering flight to the nearby plum tree where it rested on a branch just out of reach. I nipped in to get a stepladder and managed to relocate the moth and get this rather blurry picture before it spiralled off again, this time with much more determination. It vanished far out of reach at the top of a big walnut tree.

After that, things started going more smoothly and I was specially pleased to have the big day marked by a beautifully fresh Small Elephant Hawk, above, one of the grandchildren's favourites. Its relative, the Elephant Hawk, is the cover-boy/girl for the Moth Bible and shares the same glorious pink and yellowy colourways. But the Small is to my mind the richer and lovelier. I was also interested in the very scantily spotted White Ermine below, above a picture of one of three others in the eggboxes.  Briefly, I wondered if the first one might be the much rarer Water Ermine which a friend of mine near Salisbury's water meadows is always seeking. But that is more virginal still; and the standard White Ermine is famously prone to variation in colouring. Irish ones can even be brown.

The trap was home too to an Iron Prominent, the latest of this distinctively-perching family to come here this year, seen below sharing an eggbox cone (a feature which Prominents very much like to rest on comfily) with a Pebble Prominent.  

And then there were all the arrivals shown in the composite pictures which end this birthday post.  I am working my way through these and despatching their IDs to iRecord, but my annual day of being indulged is over, alas, and I must hurry off just now and make the morning tea. A big thank you to the moths, as ever (and to all the nieces, grandchildren and family and friends). I am now officially 'vulnerable' so far as the virus is concerned, on account of my venerable new age.

Update: so, here we have - reading each line in order from left to right: Common Marbled Carpet, Rustic Shoulder-knot, Willow Beauty (I think, unless it's an Engrailed), Setaceous Hebrew Character, Scalloped Hazel - a strikingly shaped moth - Knot Grass (I think), Garden Carpet, Common Wainscot and Spruce Carpet.

Update: and here we have, in similar order to the composite pic before: Burnished Brass, Poplar Hawk with Pebble Prominent and Maybug/Cockchafer, Heart and Dart, Rustic Shoulder-knot again with Marbled Minor spp, Pale Tussock, Common Marbled Carpet (different version from the one above) Common Wainscot (paler than the almost light-russet one above), White Ermine showing its far-from-white body top which may be protective camouflage resembling a wasp or similar well-armed insect, and finally Clouded-bordered Brindle.  Thank you moths!