Petticoats

 

No sooner had I posted my last episode, with its reflections on how jittery the 'underwing' moths tend to be, than a Large Yellow Underwing arrived in the trap and proved the point. My granddaughter luckily had the simple but sensible idea of filming it and then taking a screenshot of a still from the video, rather than attempting an ordinary one-off photo.

Her plan worked, above, and in spite of the inevitable blurring, the image shows the fine, golden petticoat of an ordinarily brown, black and rather drab-looking large moth. Meanwhile, she was intrigued by the two pages of assorted 'red' underwings from the Moth Bible, showing the importance of seeing the hindwings because of the pretty slight differences in the patterning.

I am only likely ever to see the standard Red Underwing although one of the Crimson ones has appeared a few times on the Upper Thames Moths blog. So I will keep checking. Meanwhile the eggboxes have been interesting enough although both quantity and variety remain down this year compared to previous seasons.

Below we have a delicate Common White Wave, a Common Plume, a Burnished Brass form tutti and a Common Swift (lots of Commoners about), a Blood-vein - a moth reported to be declining in the UK but very common here this year - a Willow Beauty and an unusual view of a Pale Prominent, almost always seen at rest when it looks very like a broken twig.

Then we have a Dart or Rustic which I need to ID or get ID-ed, a Rosy Rustic, a Snout, a Tree-lichen Beauty, a second Common Wave, the 'heart' micro, whoops another pic of the Pale Prominent, an Angle Shades and a second elusive-ID Rustic or Dart. More info soon, I hope.

And finally, some pleasantly-coloured Thorn moths teetering on the outside of the trap and on my granddaughter's hand; the first two are Dusky Thorn and the latter four September Thorn. I think.