Palely loitering

 

The Pale Eggar has been only an occasional visitor to the lamp here in Oxfordshire and never called when we lived in Leeds. My first was on 7 September 2015 and the second five years later on 28th August 2020. Now I have had a third on 31 August this year and a fourth, on the bulbholder below,  the night before last. It is classified as only locally common and indeed is infrequently recorded from the south of the county although a fellow-enthusiast on Thames Valley Moths, who has had only one in his garden this year, attracted 30 to a portable trap which he lit in nearby woodland. A creature of habitat, like so many moths.

The trap is continued to bring a reduced catch recently with faithful regulars for the time of the year, such as the Rosy Rustic and Common Wainscot - the darker form - in the next two pictures. It is also brightened by Burnished Brasses, both the forms juncta, with the central brown cross-bar undivided, and aurea where the two shiny sections are joined. Disagreement continues in the expert world about whether small DNA and genital differences warrant dividing them into two distinct species.

Brighter than these moths by some distance was the Blue Supermoon which I mentioned in my last post. I woke up at about 1am and managed to get the picture below, although it didn't look hugely different from the usual full moon, to be honest. But definitely a powerful counter-attraction to the usually dominant light trap.

Lastly for today's moths, I was struck by the fragile beauty of the Satin Wave below while having a very enjoyable time watching dragonflies hawking for prey in the sunshine. Conehead will correct me if necessary, but in the composite picture, I think I have the female and male of the Common Darter in the top row and a Migrant Hawker, including a close-up of its evilly-smiling, cartoon villain 'face'.