Saturday 6 September 2008

Here's to you, Mr and Mrs Robinson


After discussing the Setaceous Hebrew Character yesterday, I idly looked it up in Moths by Prof Edmund Ford, the Bible of Bibles, and discovered an amazing fact. He says that shortly after the Robinsons invented their wonder-trap at the end of the 1940s, no fewer than 50,000 Setaceous Hebrew Characters were caught in a single trap in Hampshire during the course of one night. Fifty thousand? It beggars belief. But Ford makes a point which should be noted by anyone nervous about eco-doom when he goes on to say that the then new practice of light-trapping had "shown that some species long thought to be rare are abundant, and others exist where they have never before been recorded." There still aren't that many of us looking. Anyway, if you follow the British weather, you will know that we are all building arks this weekend. Torrents. So here's a dip back to July and an Iron Prominent which I didn't show you at the time. It looks poised for some menacing action. Also, smaller pic, this is what it looks like for a flower as a Buff Tip approaches.

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