Shiny Rosemary

The moth trap is stowed away temporarily because of rain and cold nights but that hasn't stopped our local insects from coming up with good things. Our rather scrawny old Rosemary bush, for example, is studied with the jewel-like beetles shown above. Guess their name? Yes, the Rosemary Beetle.

I've recorded them twice before on the blog, both times in September, in 2020 and 2021. The first occasion was a photo taken by one of my sons in London (it was Covid time) and he very excellently suggested renaming it the Suffragette Beetle because of its colours of purple and green, with the sheen providing the lightness of the campaigners' third colour, white.

A white insect was coincidentally next to catch my eye when I moved from weeding round the Rosemary to doing thame in the patch of mint alongside. Here is a White Plume, a beautifully delicate micro moth which you may have disturbed yourself during daytime from long grass.

Finally, I dragged a garden chair to one side to make way for the grasscutter and a flash of panic-stricken orange revealed the presence of a Large Yellow Underwing. These are very reluctant to show the bright underwings which account for their name, so I turned the camera on to video mode and gave the reluctant moth a tickle.