Hot Tub

 

It's always the same. You talk about the moth-recording season winding down with October marching on, as I did in yesterday's post, and - Hey Presto! - something unusually lovely turns up.

So it happened this morning when I turned over an eggbox halfway through my check of the trap and said out aloud: "Goodness! What are you?"  Luckily nobody was passing within hearing range.

What I had found was the peachy-perfect moth shown above - and in many other pictures in this post. It's a Vestal but an aberration flushed as pink as one of its Roman namesakes would have been if they hopped out of a hot bath (and maybe then spotted a Peeping Tom in the temple cloisters).

I thought for a second that I might have attracted a wildly out of season Rosy Footman, a slightly more orangey-pink moth but with a similar glow, which I've seen once here and once at the grandchildren's in Wiltshire. But then I recalled an interesting discussion on the Upper Thames Moths Facebook page about various moths being suffused with pink after this long, hot Summer when they pupated in unusual warmth. The Autumnal Rustic was one example cited (and I have had very slight tinges of pink on some of mine) but the Vestal was the main one.

Sure enough, when I asked the UTM guru Dave Wilton, who has never failed me in 13 years of wise advice and amazing knowledge, he replied:

Vestals with a pink flush are certainly in vogue at the moment! Individuals like this do appear fairly regularly and I think we're seeing a lot more of them in 2026 simply because there's been such a huge influx of the moth, many thousands more of them than in a "normal" year, and they've probably bred here too.

I had kept the little creature safely in a box in case of wider interest but now I let it go, after a final photo session with an appropriate pal:

  

I also got a picture of its interestingly pallid and unadorned underside after it fluttered away from the photo session with Pippa on the lawn. As always at these moments, I am so grateful for the pleasure which comes from recording moths and the way that such wonderful surprises ambush me even after so many years.

I should end my adulation of this visitor by not assuming knowledge and showing a couple of pictures of the standard Vestal, whose creamy-white background and maroon stripe resemble the robes of the Roman temple guardians. Here we are, with one of them showing the pink variant alongside. Last picture of it, I swear:

It was an excellent night altogether, perhaps because I moved the trap unusually to a gloomy corner by our treehouse which is overshadowed by a big walnut, a tree notorious for creating a hostile environment for other plants growing beneath its wide and big-leaved branches. I briefly wondered if the moth below might be a Clifden Nonpareil, a regular here for eight or more years but not this one so far. But it wasn't big enough and proved to be a fine Red Underwing which took off and powered away, apparently intimidating my greedy pair of Robins with its size.

In the photos above, you can also enjoy my dressing gown, pyjamas, fingers and thigh. Meanwhile here are some other excellent arrivals: a Blair's Shoulder-knot (one of Dr Kenneth Blair's three namesakes as mentioned in the recent post on Clancy's Rustic),  a Lesser Treble-bar (note little hint of a pinky stripe), another of the many Merveille du Jours which are currently around to my great joy, a large Wainscot and a Beautiful Oak-tip with a second picture of it on the trap's rain cowl, showing how titchy it is.

Finally and just for the record, here's the micro Rush Veneer, followed by three hazards of last night's catch.  Luckily, I wasn't too intoxicated by my pink Vestal to forget to be wary.

A hornet, a wasp and a Buff-tailed Bumblebee. I often get them singly but seldom three in one go.