Merveille du Jour

A duff shot of a good fresh moth

Not much moss green

Nicer

Some new garden moths in October

First Brick in the six years we have been here

Stigmella microtheriella mine, probably more exciting than the adult

The Streak

Dark chestnut

A few more migrants from 2006

A speckled form of diamond back moth with the diamonds partially obscured

An almost pristine Udea ferrugalis caught on October 1st on kitchen window

This scarce bordered straw is the most orange one we caught

Only the second pearly underwing we have ever seen, with the classic grey 'mohican'

Of the 4 bordered straws we have seen this year this was the only one with properly formed wings

Grey carpet

After going through the trap one morning (06/06/06!) we noticed this little beauty on the Sparganium in the old pond

We released it at a site, where we had netted one at dusk a week or so before, that had flixweed which is grey carpet's food plant. She started laying eggs within a minute of release

We followed her activities and marked the plants with eggs with torn strips of biscuit wrapper and visited a few weeks later to find several fairly large caterpillars. It will be interesting to see what happens next year

Size doesn't matter

This is a moth, Phyllonorycter platani, and its larvae develop in London plane tree leaves

This is how the mine looks on the upper surface of the leaf

The under side is whitish, this one has already been vacated

The pupa was in a silk sac and all the frass is at one end

The adult is small but extremely beautiful

A bedstraw hawkmoth 21/09/06

This was a real treat to be greeted by this morning. Another first for the garden list

These lower three shots were the second attempt to get a more natural shot . The first try ended with the moth flying around our outhouse

Snouts with a hooktip

This pinion-streaked snout (above) was much better looking than this shot suggests and is a new one for our garden

Not a classic pose but a great moth which was caught feeding on hemp agrimony flowers. Hopefully a home grown one as we had a good number of caterpillars on hop plants

This beautiful hooktip is another new one for our garden

Devon, early August

I got into a routine of walking around the night lights each morning pre-breakfast to see if I could see any moths. The first one I saw was this male four spotted footman. The female has the four spots. A new species for me.


Another excitement was finding Jersey tigers around the centre I stayed at. I saw a migrant at Dungeness over a decade ago so really nice to see this species again. All over the place they were

Jumping Jehoshaphat or great green bush cricket? A truly superb insect but glad it was not on my hand!

This wasp spider just would not play the posing game but a real treat to see

Orange tip failure

It is September and the garlic mustard is now chewed within an inch of its existance. Not due to the orange tips which eat the seed pods and were all predated in the larval or pupal stage.

The larva change colour early on in their development. I like the grey/white stripe.

Once fully fed the larva finds a stem and ties on with a silk girdle. This individual died without pupating and the only pupa found had been opened and emptied. Maybe next year.

The garlic mustard has since been hammered (from 3 foot high to 1 inch) by both large and small white butterfly larvae.

Brimstone butterfly breeding

The alder buckthorns in the hedge were the centre of activity. The larvae numbers dropped a bit over time but over all a lot probably went to ground. We had a few pristine adults in early August and like to delude ourselves they were home grown.

Convolvulus hawk moth

Eventually got these pictures on to the system - one of two moths feeding on nicotinias in the garden

2006 migrant moths in the garden

Quite different but both Scarce bordered straws, a new species for us

A rather worn small mottled willow

This great brocade was another new species for us

Rush veneer has been pretty common in the garden trap this year

So has Udea ferrugalis or Rusty dot pearl