Slenderly Magnificent

Today's top moth is a really exciting find - not by myself but by a good buddy whose excitement I most happily share at second-hand. He is one of a number of people who kindly ask me from time to time about the identity of their garden discoveries, a rash thing to do as readers familiar with my many blunders will know.

This time, there was no doubt at all that he had found something extremely excellent, even though his consultations in books and online had led him to the tentative conclusion that it was a Burnished Brass. That's a lovely moth (or possibly moths as the scientific community is still debating whether its differing wing patterns justify dividing the species), but it is widespread. As Rupert said in his message: 

"Predictably, it turns out to be something as common as muck in suburban gardens and not, as I was beginning to hope, some special rarity, previously unknown to science."

Not so fast!

He was on to the right family and the BB and his find do share the wonderful metallic sheen caused by reflective and refractive mirror wingscales. But there's nothing ordinary about this moth. 

It is a Slender Burnished Brass, a North African species recorded fewer than 100 times in the UK and only five times on the Isle of Wight where my friend lives. He's the cartoonist Rupert Besley whose work you may know, especially in holiday postcards and book illustration.  Here's an example as a tribute to his discovery:

And here's the griff on the Besley Moth from the Moth Bible which the island's moth recorder Jim Baldwin updated before happily registering Rupert's find. As Jim says, the moth is doubly unusual as most Slender BB records have been between July and October. His theory is that this one came over in food imported from North Africa by supermarkets or wholesalers - that's how it earns the title of 'adventist' being a species which takes advantage of such hitch-hiking.

and here are some of my own recent arrivals at the trap, mundane by comparison with the Slender Burnished Brass and its glorious scimitar of yellowy-green but still handsome enough: an Oak Beauty,  an alert male Muslin Moth and a Lunar Marbled Brown with particularly distinctive crescent moons. 

Numbers in the light trap have not been large because of cold nights, including even a short spell of frost, but the days remain sunny by and large and more butterflies are about. I saw but failed to photograph a Holly Blue on a bike ride last week and took a quick pic of a Small White - deadly enemy of our brassicas later in the year when I'm ashamed to say that I show them no mercy. Speckled Woods are also about in areas of dappled shade - the two photos below are of the same one, with the different light concealing and then showing the downy surface of the wings as they get closer to the body.

Apart from the cold, my moths also face an implacable and ruthless hunter in this Robin below, the cleverest in a long line of cunning monitors of my morning visits to inspect the contents of the eggboxes.  I'm glad to say that I kept him away from the Waved Umber, Clouded Drab, Powdered Quaker and three pugs, an Oak Tree and two Dotted. 

Other insect visitors in the last week have included this bright Red Mite among a very small sample of the countless seeds produced by a Paulownia tree in the grandchildren's garden, a plump Hornet which I nearly squashed while repairing the treehouse roof (fortunately they are very docile in spite of their fearsome size and colouring) and these Ladybirds enjoying the sun on a fruit cage in the beautiful gardens at Rousham, five miles up the road from here. Aphid beware! Hungry Ladybirds are currently emerging all over the place from their Winter sleep.

The year's first Empress

 The first of the big annual highlights took place here on Thursday night, the arrival of a female Emperor moth in the trap were she obligingly laid some eggs. Breeding Emperors and Empresses has been a regular feature of life here among the moths - three successive generations raised in past years, one of them shown in the blog's title section - but I don't have time for that at the moment. They will have to take their chance in our hawthorn hedge.

I left the Empress discreetly in the shed to see if any males would be attracted by her pheromones, a process known as 'assembling' which can draw suitors from up to a mile away. None came and I moved her to a budding hibiscus but she spent the afternoon undisturbed before clearing off.

An other favourite came the same night, spurning the eggboxes and instead taking up position on the lightbulb-holder. It's a Chocolate-tip, happily-times to cheer up a little great-niece who is recovering in hospital from a nasty infection.

Another new-for-this-year was the easily-missable thumbnail of a moth, the Least Dark Arches immediately below, followed by one of my great favourites, a Muslin moth.  I've included quite a few pictures of this deceptively modest, soft grey moth to show the riches which lie beneath its lightly-dotted cloak.

A second one came last night and two American friends who are staying with us took these excellent photos making further revelations of the patterns and colours which the Muslin usually hides. Please note my lovely finger.

Jewel Box

Blenheim Palace's butterfly garden is a couple of miles' bike ride from here and a perfect place to go to bring back memories of butterfly-hunting in Zimbabwe and Sulawesi long ago. The butterflies are vividly beautiful beyond imagining and very accessible. Delighted children find them perching on their clothes; I led this lovely iridescent blue one a merry dance with my matching blue, and apparently intoxicating socks.

 

Here are some of the many species; I am sorry not to have squirrelled out their names but the long and delightfully warm greenhouse has an excellent identification chart. You can also watch them emerging from chrysalises in a cabinet at the far end. The experience has little of the thrill of encountering even just one such specimen in the wild, but everything else about it is five-star.

Visitors' closeness to the insects also allows an unhurried examination of their flying and feeding techniques such the way that a determined male will hover for ages over an unresponsive female as was the case with the red-and-black pair in my first composite picture. The opportunities for photography are endless and help an understanding of the butterflies' structure, such as the modest size of each of the scales which, in their thousands, make up the glorious wings.

Back at home, the moth trap is becoming more varied in its quieter way and here are some of its recent visitors: a shy Early Grey (the Tea Moth to me, as I am about to make some to wake P and we mix English Breakfast and Earl Grey half-and-half), then a more upfront one;

Next, a Swallow Prominent with the slender multiple chevrons which mark it out from its Lesser cousin which has one, large white triangle. And then a Herald, shield-shaped, metallic and bronzy as though forged by Hephaestus, altogether a lovely Spring arrival.

The Frosted Green makes a change as well even if its colouring is very often hard to discern. Home in, however, and it is there. Its kitten ears also give it a distinctive profile amid the eggboxes.

Finally, a glimpse of the underwing of a Common Quaker and the chubby body which makes such an attractive target for my resident robins and blackbirds. And another Common Quaker, worn but lovely in the modest way which gives it and the various other Quaker moths their name.

Grandchildren, take two

The grandchildren are back again and the moths are getting used to clambering on to fingers much more delicate than mine. I sometimes get a little impatient with this hobby but wrongly; as the granddaughter points out, the exercise often makes the males show their antennae, their most interesting organ for me, if only because we humans don't have them.

The insatiable curiosity of young visitors also sharpens my ID skills or at least encourages me to make greater efforts, as with the very lightly-marked - worn perhaps? - moth in the picture above whose veining is not immediately familiar to me. This is not a new problem as regular readers well know and it is specially bad at the start of each year's trapping when grey and brown middle-sized arrivals abound. Moire soon, I hopoe, after an internet and Moth Bible browse over morning tea.

I can, however, recognise the beautiful Powdered Quaker above and the Satellite below, although the grandchildren are too young to see the similarity between its tiny flying saucer marks and the aliens we used to shoot down in that early computer game Space Invaders.

Talking of worn moths, here is a very battered Early Grey compared with the scarcely touched Streamer below it, a lovely little moth with an attractive name prompted by the little banners caught in mid-flutter in the middle of its forewings.

Back to the little fingers, this time with their Cambridge Blue nail varnish and hosting a very nice new moth for the year, a Lunar Marbled Brown - the 'lunar' is accounted for by the tiny fingernail-clipping like a sickle moon just discernible on the lefthand side of the broader light band in the wing pattern.

Back to the familiar with this Common Quaker above and a Nut-tree Tussock plus waving antennae - the same as the first-ever visitor to the granddaughter's trap a few posts ago, a satisfyingly pretty debut moth.

Finally two snaps of a frisky Orange-tip butterfly, my second of the year and bringing my year's tally to four after a Brimstone, the Speckled Wood shown in the last post and a fast-flying Comma.