5th September - Those Wild-Eyed Boys That Had Been Away

The moths are back in town....

It has been a while since I have had the moth trap out, but last night was very still with overcast skies, perfect conditions.  With us also in September now there would likely be a different selection of moths flying.

When I went to the trap this morning my thoughts were confirmed, it was full of moths, but not necessarily an range of different species.  The egg boxes were full of Underwings as you can see from this picture.

With four egg boxes and all of them covered in underwings, I estimate there must have been at least 50.  I let them go as best I could but the garden Robin was about, and probably took the chance of a quick snack

Here is a closer view of a Large Yellow Underwing, it is a shame they never settle to show the orange and yellow lower wings that give them there name, in flight this feature turns a drab looking moth into yet another thing of beauty.

Brimstone moths were also present in good numbers, we have had these earlier in the year but they are worth looking at.

Of the smaller moths this Flame Shoulder was a nice specimen.

As always there are moths that "get away" avoiding the camera.  of these the most annoying was a Light Brown Apple Moth.

This is a Garden Carpet.

While this one is a Copper Underwing

Moth of the day though goes to this Dusky Thorn.  Notoriously flighty I photographed it first on the egg box.

As I expected it resisted any attempt to have it pose on the white board, and then flew off, fortunately it settled on the fence and I was able to photograph it there.

Some of the moths would fly into the lavender and as I was freeing some I noticed this Garden Orb Spider sitting in the middle of it's web.

I will not be bothering to put the trap out this evening as I suspect I will get all the underwings back again (minus those that fell to the Robin!).  If the weather conditions do change Saturday into Sunday I may try then.  Hopefully there will be some other wild life about this weekend to report on.

For the record the Borneo blogs are now complete, if you have read them this week and been confused about the "werewolf" references, I have been in Germany this week, and when working on the blog there it appears Google tries to translate the English I have written that it thinks is German into English, with rather amusing but annoying results.  They all should now be corrected.