As happened last year, I find myself making the mistake of thinking that the season is over and then being surprised new arrivals. I put the trap out rather absent-mindedly on Monday night, not expecting anything much, but the morning brought this very welcome bunch of Sprawlers. The species is named after a curious reflex of its caterpillar when threatened but it always puts me in mind of a John Buchan style gathering of gents in a club, as below.
It's partly the name, which conjures up Harry Enfield's incoherent old buffer in his armchair, and partly the tweedy outfit of the moth. Mind you, the beads of dew on the lower left one in my first photograph obscured the pattern so much at first sight, that I thought that I was dealing with something else altogether. Here is how it looked, below. It must have been deathly cold.
Two of the other three Sprawlers were in the eggboxes while the third had a perch on the bulbholder, below. Another new species for this year was the Winter Moth or rather two of them and the guest list was completed by a Feathered Thorn.
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