Moth night

After several days of lovely warm weather, but chilly nights, we were finally forecast a warm'ish evening, so decided to put out the moth trap. We had another beautiful sunset, but would any moths turn up in our trap?

 

It's always exciting to open up the trap in the morning, because you never know what'll be in there. At first glance it looked like lots of Hebrew Characters, then we spotted a few different moths and hiding right at the bottom was a Ruby Tiger, a lovely red moth with a fuzzy head, hairy legs and bright scarlet body.

Ruby Tiger - look at those hairy legs!

Ruby Tiger

A Herald

A Herald - lovely shape to the wings

We caught another pretty moth called a Flame Shoulder, a reddish-brown moth with a peach stripe running down the front edge of the forewings.

Flame Shoulder



Flame Shoulder

There were several other 'small brown' moths, that appeared plain at first sight. When we looked closer though, they all had features that made them really interesting.

Nut-tree Tussock - his feathery antennae mean this ones a male

Nut-tree Tussock having a bad hair day (or perhaps that's a good hair day!)

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Shuttle-shaped Dart

Early Grey

Brindled Beauty 

Our catch for the night was 17 Hebrew Characters, 1 Ruby Tiger, 1 Herald, 1 Flame Shoulder, 2 Nut-tree Tussocks, 2 Shuttle-shaped Darts, 1 Early Grey and 1 Brindled Beauty. Not bad for the bottom of our garden!

We carefully let them all go and made sure the birds didn't eat them all!