Monday 5 July 2010

Modestly appealing



Nothing of any great note this morning, although by coincidence Penny spotted a Dark Arches - like the one in yesterday's post - on our bedroom table this morning, forlornly lying upside down with its legs in the air and long dead. Once moths get into the house, they don't seem to live long, especially in this very warm weather. It must have crept in before we went down to London and expired while we were away.

In the trap there was a Small Angle Shades, so I can now fulfill my promise to show you a picture of one (above), made in the post about its older brother the Angle Shades a little further down the blog. As I mentioned then, they look more like half-brothers and they have completely different Linnean names. The only connection really seems to be that both crease their wings when resting. Note too that the Small AS has a patch of restrained but unmistakable BLUE. Hooray! Would that this colour was more common in British moths, which almost completely boycott it for reasons which I intend to discover before I die.

Also around were these two, which share small light spots. The chunkier one is a Knot Grass, pleasantly patterned, but I don't know about the other. I thought it would be easy, because of the spots, but they don't conform to any of my pictures and I think they may be scars or aberrant marks. It's one of the Beauties or possibly an Engrailed. Definite news when I have it. (And we have - Dean has come to the rescue; see comments). Meanwhile we'll leave it to read the eggbox instructions, upside down.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Martin, the last one looks like a Mottled Beauty. The 2 white marks ae probably down to wear.

MartinWainwright said...

Thanks ever so much Dean, much appreciated. I thought that must be the case but have very little self-confidence in my identifying powers, as you know, Things can only improve. I think.