Rosy Posy

 

My granddaughter's light trap keeps coming up trumps, last night with this glorious Rosy Footman. It is a moth on the shrinking list of UK species which I want to see but as yet never have. We both knew at once that something special was in the dark cylinder of the trap because of its almost fluorescent glow.

By chance, we had been checking out one of the modest number of eggboxes which she can fit below the actinic lamp and I was identifying a Flame Shoulder. She was scornful of its entitlement to such a dramatic name and pointed out the contrast with the moth - below - with the small, shining arrival deeper down in the bowl.

"That's more what I'd call a Flame Moth," she said.  And I saw to my delight that a Rosy Footman had at last come to see me, albeit at the grandchildrens' home rather than Penny's and mine. I gingerly lowered my iPhone into the gloom of the black plastic cylinder and got some blurry images, showing the glow but very poor on the delicately-etched detail. 

So we decided on the high risk strategy of tempting the moth on to the granddaughter's slender and extremely careful fingers and thank goodness, this worked. It posed briefly before fluttering away but only got as far as, first, my wrinkly hand and then my entomological grandson's pyjamas. There it stayed for a helpfully long photo session before gracefully vanishing into the protective gloom of a bush.

The granddaughter proposed renaming the moth the Fiery Bridge and the grandson chipped in with the Flamebuster. Good suggestions both but I also like Rosy Footman, even though the moth has no resemblance to the majority of its relatives in the Footman family, with their neat grey and yellow uniforms which reminded England's 18th century moth-namers of flunkeys in stately homes. Whichever name you choose, not forgetting Linnaeus' Miltochrista miniata, it is an interesting moth, mostly found in Southern coastal areas where its caterpillars feed on dog lichen.

It is described officially as 'locally common' but I get the impression that sightings are a bit rarer than that. The excellent UK Moths website, for example, uses a photo of one in the Dordogne in France in its series of pictures.

A Privet Hawk moth also paid a visit to the granddaughter's trap where she memorably found three on a single night a week ago. And there was a very good variety of other moths which I'm adding further down below in a quartet of composite photos.

First we have four quite small Riband Waves which were all outside the trap, sheltering in nooks and crannies on the house.

And then a very nice Miller moth, which the grandson promptly renamed the Hang-glider - a good alternative, I feel, because of its shape and the small black markings - a Dark Arches, a Buff-tip and a very worn Brimstone.

Thirdly we have this trio: a Willow Beauty on one of the house windows, a Bright-line Brown-eye and a Fan-foot.

And finally a Common Rustic with well-defined markings, a Garden Carpet, rather dull on an overcast morning, a Spindle Ermine and to round things off rather appropriately, a Common Footman in the sober uniform referred to above.   Neat enough but what a contrast to its delicious relative at the head of this post!