Macro photo taken with an Olympus TG-7 , others on a Pixel 6a
It’s a bit confusing, but if you look carefully at the lower right hand photo you’ll see a moth on its back and then if you look left at the big macro-photo you’ll see the full glory of a Hummingbird hawk moth’s proboscis which looks like a roll of liquorice. I suppose to be pedantic. the moth’s nose is located in its antennae, and the proboscis is used for reaching deep into the nectar glands of flowers that other moths can’t reach. The dark patch at the end is probably the rather complex part called the sensilia which is used to locate and sample the nectar. The sensitivity of the antennae is so great that the male can detect a female up to 7 miles away. But enough science. Our son brought this deceased example to us after work in a busy restaurant where it had expired on the stairs. The patch of red on its back seems to result from damage while being wrapped in tissue. A little bit of research revealed that this moth is by no means a rarity in Bath. What’s especially pleasing is that the food plants include Buddleia; Red Valerian; Honeysuckle; Lilac; Lavender and Phlox For caterpillars, Lady’s Bedstraw; Hedge Bedstraw and Wild Madder are their primary food source all of them (except wild Madder which I haven’t seen here), can be found among the rogues and vagabonds in Bath. I’ve never seen one flying let alone feeding so perhaps an experimental pot of Valerian in front of the trail cam might be a good idea.
This could be the beginning of yet another list because one of my birthday presents was a portable Skinner moth trap which folds flat and won’t take up too much room in the camper van. Isn’t it great that the winter solstice is in only six days on December 21st, and what’s especially exciting is that the solstices aren’t just a day on the calendar but a moment. At exactly 3.03pm the earth will have dropped to its lowest position in relation to the sun and from then on – or at least until the summer solstice, we’ll have more and more lovely daylight and a new season for plant hunting and growing crops on the allotment. The fungi are all-but over now but I’ve still got to identify and record about 100 of them from photos. Actually at this stage of my experience I’ll probably spend most of my time discovering how my photos managed to completely miss the most important features.
As we discovered with the trail cam on the allotment, there’s an awful lot going on at night that we never see and so the moth trap will enable us to photograph and record the nocturnal moths which are often significant pollinators. I should add that the moths enter the trap, attracted by the light, and are drawn inside where they find some egg boxes where they spend the night. Then, after they’ve been photographed and identified they’re released back into the wild completely unharmed.
Madame has offered what the police call “words of advice” about my last post which she thinks was a bit too dense for a comfortable read, and so I may take it down and split it into smaller chunks. We’ll see – but I know I easily get overexcited with a topic and forget where the brakes are. Someone once told me that my sermons reminded them of being engulfed by the spirit of Thomas Hardy. I thought it was quite a compliment but I was thinking she meant “Under the Greenwood Tree” and she was probably thinking of Jude the Obscure”!
