Wains and Scotts

As of the wee small hours on Monday, as Mrs Thatcher might have put it: "We are a Grand-Uncle". A lovely little girl has been born to the middle one of my three lovely and interesting nieces. When I think of them, I think of the family of moths featured today, the Wainscots, because the combination of their parents' names, Wainwright and Scott, shrinks nicely into this joint word.

Having said that, I get into a worse muddle than usual over the Wainscots whose markings are only subtly different and are confused by variations within each species. The easy way, for me, is to say that all the ones I find are Common Wainscots which come in both the white and beige-pinky forms shown above. But I've also had their relatives the Smoky Wainscot and the Shoulder-striped and I wonder if the one below is one of these? 

I remember the relative joy of getting a Large Wainscot last year, because they live up to their name. Meanwhile here is a picture of our wain, melting Dali-like into the paving, which I carefully repair every year. And to the right, a picture of the Scott Sociable motorbike and sidecar; just the thing for a young couple with a small babe.  And made in Shipley, where the little one's grandparents live.

Blushing pink

I was a bit over-hasty in relegating the Black Arches to a secondary position behind the Marbled Beauty and Marbled Green yesterday. This was because I wasn't aware of its hidden glories - soft grey underwings and a staggering pink body.

I should have known. The pink is mentioned in the Moth Bible, but as so often in years gone by, I was not paying attention in class. My lucky break came late yesterday afternoon when I took in the moth trap from the rain and noticed that the Black Arches which had come overnight was still there. The crucial difference from the morning was that something, perhaps the rain, had persuaded it to reveal a little of its underwings, like a nightie.  When I shifted the box, it slid them open a little more and the pink blazed out.

Can pink blaze? Well it did for me. It was such an unexpected contrast to the white-and-black forewings and the grey below.  I coaxed the poor insect to open its wings wider until it lost patience and flew off. But it was sleepy and made progress like a student with a hangover. I tracked it down and persuaded it on to a holly leaf.

This allowed me to take the top picture, showing the pink abdomen from below. A lovely moth indeed. I hereby promote it back to equal ranking with the Marbleds.

Nice to have you back

Last month I enjoyed an excellent night when a Marbled Green and a Marbled Beauty arrived together. Now one of them has paid me a return visit; the Marbled Beauty above. A Spectacle Moth is kindly providing scale in place of my usual chubby fingers or thumb. The patterning of both the Marbled cousins is lovely, especially for its subtlety. Yesterday's Black Arches is also a favourite of mine with its op-art Bridget Riley treatment of black and white. Another of them came last night, snuggling up to a Common or Lesser Common Rustic to deny my fingers their day in the limelight again. But the Marbleds are in a different, subtler class.

Here he or she is again, closer up, above. Instead of a Marbled Green, I discovered as I went through the eggboxes, there was a second Marbled Beauty tucked away - picture below. See how the patterning is slightly different, but just as effective in terms of camouflage defence against birds.

A third moth in the trap also appeals to me, although it has appeared on the blog at regular intervals. I still get a kick of its peculiar shape, like a counter in a board game or, more appropriately, a piece of bird poo which a hunting sparrow or blackbird might ignore.  This is the Chinese Character moth. No other in the UK rests in anything resembling that position, so even I always know what it is.

Humming along

It was an excellent moth day yesterday although I failed to get a picture of a very agreeable visitor, a Hummingbird Hawk moth. I was pottering in the garden in bright and very warm sunshine when it appeared on a pink phlox, zooming around and nectaring as if there was no tomorrow.

I felt in my belt pouch and, curses, there was no camera. I had put it on charge just before wandering out. I nipped inside but, unlike the miracle of the Brown Argus failing-battery photo last week, i wasn't lucky this time. The hummer was still there when I got back but only for a few seconds. It didn't return and, as a busy little migrant from warmer lands, I don't expect it to. it will be foraging adventurously somewhere else.

My top picture therefore comes from the archive. I took it on Paxos in 2010. Happy memories. But there was plenty of solace in the moth trap on the next - Saturday/Sunday - night. Deep in an eggbox cone was the lovely Black Arches with its magnificent antennae in my second and third photos. And sitting on the hydrangea just above the trap was the handsome Canary-shouldered Thorn below.

Cover girl (or boy)

In my restless quest for novelty, probably a legacy of my past occupation, I balanced the trap on top of a hedge last night under the benign boughs of a beech and an oak. I was rewarded with an unusually interesting turnout of micromoths, those midgets of the night-time flying world, whose tiny size, complications and sometimes drab colouring can leave me cold.

Not this time. As you will perhaps agree from the first three, size needn't matter. In order they are - to the best of my belief - Pammene aurita, Pyrausta aurata (interesting material for a Latin discussion in those names; I will return to the subject) and Carcina quercana.  The last, whose 'surname' refers to the sheltering oak tree already mentioned, is a distinguished moth for he or she forms the cover star on the Micro-moth Bible.

There were quite a few other micros in the eggboxes and I show them below. I will try to find time to nail them later but must meanwhile do some Hoovering, for we expect visitors. My thumb comes in handy in the first one, to show the extreme smallness of these creatures:

There were also a great many wasps, as in the last picture above, which made checking the eggboxes a careful affair. Mind you, I am not specially troubled by wasp stings and don't mind if wasps want to buzz about in my vicinity. they are even quite interesting to examine. I wonder, for instance, if the different patterning of the black and yellow on the thoraxes of these two below has any significance.

Incy Wincy

 

Penny and I have become very familiar again with Incy Wincy Spider over the last 18 months, including the fascinating range of slightly different versions of the song, both in terms of the words and the accompanying actions.

Anyway, there she was in the trap this morning, which might have been very bad news for the moths had I left them for too long. as it was, Incy Wincy was too preoccupied with her ball of eggs to start making a web. Isn't it sweet, the way she's carrying it with just one arm/leg. she looks as though she's off ten-pin bowling.

Here are some of her potential meals from the eggboxes, which continue to be busy in this pleasant August weather:

Swallow Prominent - third of the P's to call recently now that the second generation is under way

Willow Beautyin good condition - these bigger moths tear their wings easily

Brown-line Bright-eye (not to be confused with the Bright-line Brown-eye)

Smoky Wainscot (I think, or it could be Common W)

Scarce Footman (not very scarce round here)

One of the Fruit Tree Tortrixes, I think

Flounced Rustic

And here's a moth which wouldn't have been eaten - a Common Wainscot which preferred to hole up on a sweetcorn leaf rather than tuck itself into an eggbox.

And lastly of all, here is my little poster celebrating our magnificent butterfly weekend, now on the village noticeboard and elsewhere. And the sun is out again today.

Ragbag

I'm rather down to the barrel-scrapings today, thanks to my diversionary adventures among the butterflies and neglect of the moth trap for the last few nights. We were down in London on grandparent duty yesterday, too, and had the pleasure of showing the little one her first Holly Blue at close quarters. They seem very common in the capital.

Since we had the Pale Prominent yesterday, I'll start with another PP from that tribe, the Pebble Prominent at the top of the post with the pretty and distinctive markings which give it its name. The initials PP resonate with me as they also belonged to my long-time editor at The Guardian, the estimable Peter Preston. He shares them too with the Plumed Prominent, a rarity among moths which I have yet to see.

My second picture simply shows the variety of visitors in the eggboxes at this time of the year: a Ruby Tiger sharing quarters with a White Satin and a Mother of Pearl plus some speck of a micro, I think one of the mini-ermines. The Ruby Tiger is a moth which I love very much so here it is again below, along with part of my dressing gown. I share my nightwear with you and this Ruby Tiger is similarly giving you a flash of its underwings, lovely and red but usually folded neatly away in Victorian fashion.

Here's a Burnished Brass, another frequent customer but also a favourite of mine - and I imagine of everyone else, thanks to its lovely light-reflecting and refracting wing scales.

Then I think we have a nice fat Dingy Footman, completing a trio with the Common and Scarce Footmen I showed a week or so ago:

And now for a couple more Common or Lesser Common Rustics, adding to the great variety shown in these two species. I think. Please correct me if they are something else.  The first has an interesting patch of scale damage on its wings, perhaps from a lucky escape from a bird.

I'm never very at ease when trying to ID Carpet moths, so I will not (yet) stick my neck out on these two. Further reading for me, I hope, later in the day.

In microland below, however, I will stick my neck out and suggest that we have a Bud Moth, Spilonota occellana left, and Aethes cnicana, right.